30s Summary
Cryptocurrency prices dipped slightly after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell implied there was no rush to cut rates in the US due to the strong economy. Bitcoin fell by 1.5% to $88,300 soon after Powell’s speech, while Ether saw a roughly similar drop. Despite the slide, Bitcoin has experienced a week-on-week increase of 15%, and other digital coins like Cardano’s ADA, XRP, NEAR Protocol, and Stellar’s XLM have also reported gains between 20% and 40%.
Full Article
After a major bump following Trump’s election, the cryptocurrency markets took a slight hit towards the end of U.S. trading on Thursday. This was apparently in response to a speech from Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Powell said that the economy wasn’t giving off any signals indicating a rush to lower rates was necessary. He suggested the current strong economy was allowing decision making to be approached more cautiously.
Not long after Powell made these remarks, the price of bitcoin fell around 1.5% down to $88,300. It’s slipped a bit more since then, standing at $88,000, which is a 3.2% decrease over the past 24 hours. Ether, another popular cryptocurrency, has gone down by about the same amount.
However, the broader CoinDesk 20 Index has seen a 0.5% increase over the same period. A notable gainer was Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency, which advanced by 13%. This particular surge could be in response to comments made by Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some people believe his comments hinted at plans to quietly step down, following Trump’s win.
A rate cut by the Federal Reserve in mid-December was believed to be a sure thing a few hours ago. But the likelihood of this happening has dropped to 62%, following Powell’s speech. Just one day ago, it was at an 83% chance. This data was gathered by CME FedWatch.
The general market, usually performing well recently, has seen a slight drop due to Powell’s hawkish tone. The Nasdaq for example, dipped by 0.75% to a session low just minutes before the day’s trading came to a close.
Even with these dips, the cryptocurrency markets are still performing well lately overall. Bitcoin, for instance, has seen a week-over-week increase of 15%. Other cryptocurrencies, such as Cardano’s ADA, XRP, the NEAR Protocol, and Stellar’s XLM, have increased by between 20% and 40%.