Reasons why Bitcoin (BTC) price is falling today while altcoins remain strong

After rising above $29k on Thursday, the Bitcoin price fell to $27.5k today. BTC price is trading at $27,863 after a 3% pullback in the last 24 hours. Altcoins remain relatively stronger amid Bitcoin weakness, with Ethereum prices trading sideways near the $1,800 level over the past 24 hours.

Among the top altcoins, Cardano (ADA) and XRP held strong amid selling pressure in the broader crypto market. ADA price is up over 2% to $0.384 amid rebound from support level, while XRP price is trading at $0.5318 after a 25% rally this week as investors expect Ripple to win the long-running lawsuit against the US SEC.

Reasons why the Bitcoin price is pulling

Friday expiration: The main reason behind the pullback in the Bitcoin price is the monthly and quarterly expiration on March 31st. data of Deribit exchange, 141k BTC options are set to expire with a put-call ratio of 0.74 and a maximum pain point of $24,000. Bitcoin price will remain volatile as options with a face value of $4.1 billion expires on Friday.

In addition, 1.746 million ETH options with a face value of $3.1 billion are about to expire, with a put-call ratio of 0.33 and a maximum pain point of $1,600.

Deribit Market Data Deribit CVD & Delta indicates the Bitcoin price impact of options expiration. Binance Market BUSD leads the sale with futures sales. BTC price risks downside volatility if it breaks below $27.7k.

The US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet: The US Fed published its balance sheet showing factors affecting balance sheets. The Fed balance sheet falling $28 billion this week, after rising nearly $100 billion last week to a total of $400 billion amid banking woes.

Fed Loans to banks fell to $152.6 billion from $163.9 billion and loans to discount windows fell to $88.2 billion from $110.2 billion last week. Also, borrowings from BTFP increased to $64.4 billion from $53.7 billion. This affects traders’ sentiment and dragged down the Bitcoin price.

US Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) data: The The US Bureau of Economic Analysis will release the PCE and Core PCE inflation data today. PCE inflation increased to 5.4% YoY in January from 5.3% in December, and Core PCE data also increased last month.

Core PCE is expected to cool to 4.4% YoY down from previously 4.7%. Bitcoin price is trading lower as traders await key inflation data that will influence the Fed’s decision on further rate hikes.

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