Despite Fed Hikes Interest Rates Again, Bitcoin And The Cryptocurrency Market Held Steady
On the 1st of February, after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates again, the price of the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies and tokens available in the market held steady. Today the Federal Reserve announced that the central bank had increased interest rates by 25 basis points, but this announcement didn’t affect the price of cryptocurrencies.
This move from the Fed is aligned with market expectations, and they increased rates from 4.5% to 4.75%, which are all-time high federal funds rates in decades. Since the start of last year, the Fed has started aggressively raising rates in an attempt to cover inflation, which is a 40-year record high. These moves from the Fed of increasing interest rates adversely affected the price of stocks, equities, and crypto assets.
According to data from CoinGecko, Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency in the market, was trading at around $23,029 as of this writing. With this price value, Bitcoin is down more than 66% from its all-time high value of around $69,044, which it recorded in November 2021. On the other hand, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency in the market, was trading at around $1,577, as per data from CoinGecko. ETH is currently more than down 67% from its all-time high value of around $4,878, which it also recorded in November 2021. However, both of these leading cryptocurrencies increased by around 2% over the past week.
According to the 2nd of February report from Decrypt, James Butterfill, the Head of Research at CoinShares, said that today’s announcement from the Fed added nothing unique to move the markets. According to James, Jerome Powel, Federal Reserve Chairman, has attempted to define hawkishness by saying that the job isn’t done, but the markets aren’t purchasing it. According to John Nance, the co-founder of White Lion Capital, the big question on the minds of everyone in the crypto industry is, is the bottom in for risk crypto assets?
