Investing.com – Bitcoin’s price held steady on Thursday after rebounding from recent highs as anticipation of a tight presidential election and relatively higher U.S. interest rates kept investors averse to cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency trading volumes were also mostly subdued due to increased risk aversion, while overnight losses in equity markets also provided moderate signals for cryptocurrency markets. Most altcoins also followed Bitcoin’s muted moves, while Solana overtook its competitors in terms of increased activity on the blockchain.

rose 0.3% to $67,437.9 by 01:17 ET (05:17 GMT). Symbolic declines over the last two sessions after failing to breach the $70,000 level earlier this week.

Interest rates and election shocks put pressure on Bitcoin

Bitcoin initially gained on a wave of increased speculation that Donald Trump would win a second term in 2024. Recent polls and forecast markets also showed that Trump has a slight advantage over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Trump has promised to introduce friendlier cryptocurrency regulations if elected, having largely maintained a pro-crypto stance in recent campaigns.

However, Trump’s broader macroeconomic policies are expected to be largely inflationary in nature – a trend that portends relatively high interest rates and a stronger dollar. This concept has pushed the dollar to its highest level in almost three months in recent sessions, while putting a lot of pressure on risk-driven markets.

Expectations for a slower pace of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve have also put pressure on speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies, given that higher rates limit the amount of liquidity that can be allocated to risky assets.

As it showed, investors were broadly supportive of the Fed’s smaller 25-basis-point cut in November.

U.S. data released later on Thursday is expected to provide more clues about the U.S. economy.

Solana is growing amid increased blockchain activity and memecoin speculation

outperformed cryptocurrency markets this week, rising 4.5% to a nearly three-month high of $173,068 on Thursday on increased trading volumes.

Coindesk attributed the price escalate largely to increased activity on the Solana blockchain, particularly for AI-related meme tokens.

It also saw user numbers rise to a record high of over 8 million, while speculative positions on Solana skyrocketed this week.

Solana’s value is up 8.4% this week, compared to Bitcoin’s 1.5% decline.

Cryptocurrency price today: Ether falls, altcoins muted

Broader altcoins traded in a flat to low range. The world’s No. 2 cryptocurrency was an outlier, falling 2.4% to $2,553.24.

and traded in a flat to low range, while among meme tokens it was up 1.2%.