Bitcoin Plummets 2.9% as Rate Fears Weigh Heavily

Bitcoin's price fell by 2.9% to $62,281.0 on Tuesday, continuing its decline after a weekend recovery attempt. The drop was attributed to concerns over rising U.S. interest rates and persistent institutional selling of cryptocurrencies.

The Federal Reserve's hawkish signals last week, with most policymakers leaning towards raising interest rates this year, weighed heavily on crypto markets. Higher interest rates are detrimental to speculative, non-yielding assets like cryptocurrency.

Institutional investors continued to sell spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), pulling nearly $160 million from Bitcoin ETFs so far this week, according to data from SoSoValue. This indicates that demand for cryptocurrencies and crypto products remains fragile.