KEY POINTS
  • President Joe Biden said in an afternoon press conference that the U.S. will introduce another wave of sanctions against Russia that would limit its ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen.
  • Earlier in the day, bitcoin lost 8% to touch its lowest level in a month.

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Cryptocurrencies rose Thursday, erasing sharp losses from earlier in the day, as traders appeared to shake off the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Bitcoin climbed 1.7% higher to $38,262.21, according to Coin Metrics. Ether gained about 0.2% to trade around $2,631.50.

Early in the day, bitcoin dropped more than 8% to touch $34,702.18, marking its lowest level in a month and falling below a key support level, according to Katie Stockton from Fairlead Strategies. She also said the down move could exhaust itself by the day's end and give way to two or more weeks of stabilization.

President Joe Biden said in an afternoon press conference that the U.S. will introduce another wave of sanctions against Russia that would limit its ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen, in an effort to isolate Moscow from the global economy.

Cryptocurrency price moves have increasingly become more correlated to movements in other risk assets like stocks, as institutional interest builds and more short-term investors trading bitcoin like other risk equities have entered the market.

Cryptocurrencies have been under pressure since bitcoin hit a record high of nearly $69,000 in early November. Since then, bitcoin has fallen nearly 50%.

"The current geopolitical situation will inevitably have an effect on the already elevated prices in the commodities market and aggravate the already-serious supply chain issues which, in turn, could elevate inflation," said Anto Paroian, chief operating officer at digital asset investment fund ARK36. "This means that the Fed and other central banks may really have no room to reverse their hawkish course and we can expect risk assets and cryptocurrencies to go deeper into the bear market territory."

Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development and international at crypto exchange Luno, said that bitcoin could see lows at around the $30,000 mark with the key level being the low of between $28,000 and $29,000 seen last July.

If bitcoin manages to hold above that, then it could move to new highs later this year, Ayyar said. But he added that if the price falls below that, then bitcoin could move to the low $20,000 mark.

—CNBC's Ryan Browne contributed reporting.

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