• The Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by 25bps, taking it to 4.75 – 5%.
• Bitcoin’s price stayed relatively flat at $28,500 upon the announcement.
• The Fed sees 5.1% on the median dot plot for the end of 2023 and 4.3% for the end of 2024.
Fed Raises Rates
The Federal Reserve raised its federal funds rate by 25 basis points (bps), taking it to 4.75 – 5%, as announced by Jerome Powell. Upon the announcement, Bitcoin’s price remained relatively flat at $28,500.
Fed Dot Plot
The Fed’s median dot plot predicted a rate of 5.1% at the end of 2023 and 4.3% at the end of 2024, with one more rate hike expected before then. Additionally, they removed „ongoing rate hikes“ from their statements and emphasized that „the US banking system is sound and resilient.“
Powell Commentary
All eyes are now on Powell who will be discussing the new Fed Dot Plot and economic projections at 6:30 PM GMT today. It will be interesting to see what he has to say about the state of monetary policy in light of these latest changes in rates.
Bitcoin Price Stays Flat
Despite this news, Bitcoin’s price did not move much following this announcement and stayed relatively flat compared to pre-announcement levels at $28,500 USD per BTCUSD pair on TradingView (see below).
BTCUSD:(Source: TradingView)
Conclusion
It remains uncertain how markets will react going forward due to this news but given that Bitcoin has stayed largely flat so far there does not appear to be any major effect yet from this news alone on BTCUSD prices or movements in general macro markets such as DXY index which also suffered following FOMC meeting earlier today according to James Van Straten’s article here on CryptoSlate (see link below).
