The cryptocurrency market witnessed a collective decline at the beginning of today’s trading, Friday, May 31, 2024, while Bitcoin tried to hold on to the $68,000 barrier that it briefly hovered during yesterday’s trading, Thursday.

Caution dominated the markets in anticipation of the release of consumer spending data in the United States later today, which reduced investors’ appetite for cryptocurrencies in general.

Consumer spending data is the Federal Reserve's preferred benchmark for measuring the level of inflationary pressures, and plays a key role in the Fed's decision on the direction of interest rates.

What is the price of Bitcoin in dollars today?

Bitcoin caught its breath a little from the losses of the previous session thanks to the dollar stopping its series of successive gains that negatively affected the attractiveness of cryptocurrencies in the eyes of investors recently.

The price of Bitcoin rose at the beginning of Friday trading by about 0.5 percent, recording $ 68,408.29 , heading towards monthly gains of about 13 percent during May.

Despite the monthly gains, the most powerful cryptocurrency in the world is still moving between the range of 60-70 thousand dollars, which it has maintained since mid-March.

The path of inflation and interest rates in the United States is the biggest driver of the cryptocurrency market at the present time, as US interest rates remaining high for a longer period will represent support for the dollar at the expense of Bitcoin and digital currencies in general.

What are the prices of other cryptocurrencies today in dollars?

Ethereum - the second strongest cryptocurrency in the world - fell by more than 1 percent to reach $ 3,741.3 in morning trading on Friday.

Binance coin also fell by about 0.6 percent to $ 592.2 , Cardano fell by 0.8 percent to $ 0.4481 , and Solana fell by about 1.5 percent to $ 166.1 .

Ripple also lost more than 1 percent, recording $ 0.5191 , while Dogecoin fell 2.13 percent to $ 0.1595 .

On the other hand, Tether stabilized with a marginal increase of 0.01 percent to reach $ 0.9997 .