• Quant (QNT) price jumped to near $117 on Friday, but traded near $100 on Monday morning.
• QNT was down amid selling pressure after rallying on news the blockchain platform had collaborated on a UK CBDC with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Bank of England.
• The collaboration is seen as a potential positive trigger for future QNT price gains, although currently bears can target $80.

As major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) struggle with fresh sideways grind, some investors are taking whatever profits they can. This is the case with crypto markets down today.

The price of Quant (QNT) is down 2% in the past hours, trading just under $100 early morning on Monday. 

However, the token had jumped to highs near $117 on Friday after news that the blockchain platform had collaborated with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Bank of England on the UK’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).

QNT’s daily trading volume was $32.3 million, with a 24-hour decline of 26% from a day earlier.

Quant collaborates on Project Rosalind test for UK CBDC

Quant, founded in 2018, is a UK-based blockchain platform that seeks to make it easy for traditional financial institutions to tap into blockchain technology. The platform pioneered the interoperable blockchain network Overledger, which market experts say could be critical to the development of CBDCs.

On 16 June, Quant announced it had played a role in Project Rosalind, acting together with digital transformation platform UST as a project vendor. Project Rosalind is a test for the UK CBDC, which was led by the Bank for International Settlements and Bank of England. Other participants were Bank of Canada, Barclays Bank, Amazon and Mastercard.

The test sought to explore how application programming interfaces (APIs) could be used for CBDC systems.

The test showed that APIs had the potential to enable CBDC systems to deliver several benefits related to payments functionality and security. Rosalind also showed that innovative use cases around CBCDs were possible, including their use in supporting further digitization of the economy.

“For the first time money is ready for the digital age,” said Gilbert Verdian, founder and CEO of Quant. “A CBDC will enable citizens and businesses to automate cumbersome payments and processes and implement logic into money”

Verdian has urged banks and other financial institutions to “read the Project Rosalind report and start planning their smart money infrastructure strategy.”

Quant price prediction

Quant’s role in Project Rosalind and the news of it as announced on Friday was a positive catalyst for the price of QNT. With this outlook, the blockchain platform signals its potential role in the growing CBDCs space.

But in terms of price movement over the past 10 months, the bear market sell-off sees the token currently trade more than 76% from its all-time high above $427 reached in 2021. It’s a trend that could see QNT drop to sub-$80 levels, a target for bears, if the support level near $95 fails.

On the flipside, if an upbeat sentiment permeates the crypto market – probably led by Bitcoin (BTC) price rebounding to $30k, QNT could recover and target $200. The two likely hurdles on the upside are $105 and $120.

Bitcoin has been unable to break above or below its current rage, and price action remains undecided. During yesterday’s trading session, the cryptocurrency saw upside volatility, but gains were surrounded once more today as macroeconomic forces took over BTC.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) trades at $19,200 with sideways movement in the last 24 hours and 4% profits in the last 7 days. While large cryptocurrencies have been able to preserve some of their gains from the past week, most are following the general sentiment in the market.

U.S. Economy Report Tumbles Bitcoin Price

As Bitcoin was moving into its upcoming resistance level at around $20,500, the U.S. published its recent economic report on the job sector. The initial jobless claims for September’s last job came in at 193,000, the lowest level since April 2022, according to a report from CNBC.

This represents a 16,000 decline from the previous week when the jobless claims stood at 215,000. This data indicates that the U.S. economy has continued to see a spike in its job force, with fewer people reporting unemployment.

The Jobless continuing claims also saw a decline of 29,000 for a total of 1.3 million. This data has relevance as the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) is set at stopping inflation from rising, as measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The latter metric is currently at a multi-decade high which forced the financial institution to hike their interest rates. However, the Fed’s monetary policy seems to be having no impact on U.S. economic growth. The report stated:

The strong labor numbers come amid Fed efforts to cool the economy and bring down inflation, which is running near its highest levels since the early 1980s. Central bank officials specifically have pointed to the tight labor market and its upward pressure on salaries as a target of the policy tightening.

Bitcoin Far From Seeing A Price Bottom?

As a result of this data, the legacy financial markets and Bitcoin traded to the downside. Market participants must be pricing in further interest rate hikes and more aggressive measures from the Fed as it attempts to cool down inflation.

As the data went public, President of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Lorretta Mester spoke about doing “what we must do to get back to price stability”. Other members of the financial institution are likely to adopt a similar stand. This will translate into more pain for Bitcoin and risk-on assets.

Commenting on the data, an analyst for Material Indicators said the following, while sharing the chart below showing the crypto market’s reaction to the jobless report:

FireCharts shows how BTC traders responded to the economic news. Strong economic report means FED tightening hasn’t had much if any impact yet. Translation: More aggressive rate hikes through Q4 and into 2023. Macro Analysis: THE BOTTOM is not in.

As NewsBTC reported yesterday, Bitcoin must stay above $18,700 to $18,600 to sustain any potential bullish momentum. If bulls can defend these levels, the cryptocurrency could see a relief that will push its price north of $20,000 ahead of more economic announcements from the Fed.