Crypto Biz: The real reason crypto hodlers should care about the Federal Reserve, April 28–May 4, 2022
Wall Street’s slow embrace of crypto means we all have to start watching the Federal Reserve again. Cointelegraph parsed through the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy statement on Wednesday to try and uncover some nuggets of useful information. You can think of it as an exercise in financial esoterics to uncover the hidden meaning behind the Fed’s decision-making. As it turns out, the decision to raise interest rates by 50 basis points was already expected, so the actual FOMC document provided very little new information. But, Fed Chair Jerome Powell sparked a late rally in crypto and stocks on Wednesday when he said 75 basis-point increases aren’t on the table.
You wanted the institutions to adopt crypto, didn’t you? Now, the asset class is trading almost in lockstep with other risk assets such as stocks, which means the Fed’s actions, words, intentions and expectations matter — at least for the foreseeable future.
At the conclusion of their two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, FOMC members voted to raise the target for the federal funds rate to between 0.75% and 1%. That equates to a 50 basis-point increase for those keeping track. The last time the Fed hiked rates that much was over 20 years ago. Clearly, central bankers were wrong about inflation, or else they wouldn’t need to hike rates so aggressively. FYI: Central bankers are wrong about a lot of things. Yet, we have no choice but to wait in anticipation for their edicts. Whether the Fed will continue to hike aggressively into 2023 is a subject of fierce debate. My expectation is that they will be forced to stop once something breaks.
*FED RAISES RATES 50 BPS, TO START RUNOFF JUNE 1 AT $47.5B/MTH*FED EXPECTS `ONGOING’ INCREASES IN RATES WILL BE
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