Bitcoin Hold Above $20,000 Ahead Of Fed’s Rate Hike

Bitcoin and the wider crypto market continued to trade correlated with risk assets. This happened on Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision tomorrow. 

The largest cryptocurrency was up ever so slightly by 0.2%, trading for $20,414, according to Coinbase. Meanwhile, Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency, is at $1,579—a 0.6% day increase.

How Much The Feds Rates Hits

U.S. stocks, on the other hand, had a rocky day of trading. All Wall Street’s major indexes dropped on news that the labor market was strong. This was something that could lead to the Fed continuing to increase interest rates. The reason is low unemployment typically means people spend more, leading prices to increase. 

However, Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. had a stellar day of trading. This occured after social media posts claimed that the country’s government may ease its strict COVID-19 lockdowns. 

Furthermore, central banks around the world have been raising interest rates to control soaring prices. The Fed has been particularly eager to get inflation under control because it’s at a four-decade high. Consequently, Investors have avoided so-called risk assets like equities and Bitcoin. 

Bitcoin and crypto is typically closely correlating with U.S. stocks—particularly tech stocks. More recently, however, Bitcoin has proven to be somewhat more resilient to larger macroeconomic trends. This leads to the obvious question, has the asset “decoupled” from equities?

The Federal Reserve tomorrow will announce its latest interest decision. It was expected it would slow down the particularly aggressive monetary policy it’s used this year to tame inflation. However, today’s figures show that those expectations may be misplaced.

“With markets shifting expectations towards a dovish outcome at the upcoming meeting, we are concerned. Web are concerned about a negative market reaction to persistent hawkishness from the Fed.” The above statement was by Singapore-based crypto investment firm QCP Capital’s Darius. 

Bitcoin’s Nemesis, Dogecoin

Furthermore, while other cryptocurrencies haven’t moved too much today.  Dogecoin has continued to stand out among the largest crypto assets by market cap.

The original meme coin has surged 7.2% in 24 hours, trading for $0.13. It jumped 132.4% in the past seven days, making it the best performing digital asset last week. 

This surge of success is mainly because Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk has continued to post Dogecoin-related memes on the social media. The result is obvious. A renewed interest in the coin—the eighth biggest digital asset by market cap. 

More on Bitcoin News Today, Coinbase Is Losing One Of Its C-suite Executives.

Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee is leaving his position at the crypto exchange, the executive shared Wednesday.

In a Linkedin post, Chatterjee said working at Coinbase for three years was “a ride.” He also said it is “the most exciting roller coaster” from which he now needs a break. 

“It’s time to get off the ride and catch my breath,” Chatterjee wrote.

According to a company filing with the SEC issued last week, Coinbase’s “product, engineering and design teams are being reorganized within a product group structure” after Chatterjee leaves. In his absence, “the leaders of such groups will assume responsibility for Coinbase’s product offerings.” 

Furthermore, Chatterjee is to retain his advisory role to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong until at least February 3, 2023. Chatterjee was hired at Coinbase from Google for a massive $646 million compensation package. 

During his time at the company, Coinbase’s cryptocurrency listings skyrocketed from just 25 tokens to over 200.