By Elsa Ohlen
Bitcoin was leading gains among cryptocurrencies Friday, helped by several factors including hopes of easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
Bitcoin was up 1.7% to $96,675 over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. It rose on Thursday along with U.S. stocks following strong earnings from tech giants Meta and Microsoft.
Altcoins were mixed with Ether and XRP edging up less than 1% while Solana and Cardano fell marginally.
Futures tracking the benchmark S&P 500 were up 0.6%.
Even if cryptos, and Bitcoin in particular, have shown signs of decoupling with the stock market in recent weeks, they are still very much affected by macroeconomic events such as interest rates and trade policy.
The price of Bitcoin has likely been boosted Friday by signals that China is open to trade talks with the Trump administration. MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, also said it would continue to increase its stash of the digital coin as it reported quarterly earnings that missed expectations late Thursday.
Friday's U.S. April jobs report could have an impact on crypto prices if it nudges the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, which tends to have a positive effect on riskier assets such as cryptos.
Write to Elsa Ohlen at elsa.ohlen@barrons.com
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May 02, 2025 05:52 ET (09:52 GMT)
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