The decision regarding the general interest rates in the United States came in yesterday and the Federal Reserve didn’t really surprise the market. Bitcoin continues fighting for $105,000, going through some very moderate volatility in the interim, all the while altcoins are also stagnating.
The Fed did note some changes in its economic outlook, though, so let’s take a closer look at the events that transpired throughout the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin Price Battles for $105,000
At the time of this writing, Bitcoin’s price is trading at around $104,800, marking a very slight increase of around 0.2% on the daily chart seen below.
It’s worth noting that the cryptocurrency had declined to around $103,600 but the bulls were quick to intercept the move and pushed the price back towards $105K.
This comes immediately after the US Federal Reserve decided to keep the general interest rates unchanged in the range between 4.25% and 4.5%. This is what the majority of the traders were expecting. In fact, according to Polymarket, there was less than 1% chance for the institution to go with a 25bps cut.
Nonetheless, the FOMC update also included a few additional remarks, which do mark a slight change of tone. Most notably:
- Ups inflation forecast to 3%
- Cuts 2025 GDP forecast to 1.4%
- Sees 50bps in cuts this year
- Rates projected at 3.6% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027
At the same time, president Donald Trump continues with his hostile rhetoric towards Fed Chairman Powell, calling him “stupid,” and insisting that the country is losing billions of dollars because of the institutions refusal to cut rates. The political pressure seems to be mounting.
Altcoins Stagnate
Perhaps somewhat expectedly, the altcoins market is also stagnating and failed to chart any notable moves throughout the past 24 hours.
As you can see in the heatmap below, most of the alternative cryptocurrencies are trading at more or less breakeven, with a few notable exceptions, of course.
For example, Uniswap’s native token – UNI – managed to increase by more than 5%, defying the market slowdown, as well as OKB, which is up by almost 8%.
On the other hand, Hyperliquid’s HYPE continues crashing and is down another 7% in the past 24 hours, currently trading below $38.
