Crypto rallies through the Fed's first rate increase since 2023
Bitcoin rose 0.88% over 24 hours to $76,621 as the central bank's projections implied only one further hike. Zcash jumped 23% to a record after Paradigm disclosed a stake.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted to lift the target rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4%. Chair Kevin Warsh told reporters that inflation had been "too high … for too long" and that recent months’ readings did not suggest underlying trends had meaningfully improved.
What reassured traders was the committee's “dot plot” forecast, with a median policy rate of 4.1% at the end of both 2026 and 2027, implying just one further 25 basis-point move and no sustained tightening cycle.
Risk assets rallied, with the Dollar Index losing 0.17% while Nasdaq 100 index futures gained 1.04%, S&P 500 futures 0.81%, gold 1.02% and silver 1.52%. The two-year Treasury yield slipped 2 basis points to 4.71% after touching the highest level since 2024 in the previous session.
Crypto joined the move rather than led it, a change from earlier in the week, when the asset class traded independently of equities. The sector’s recovery is broad-based, but more pronounced at the speculative end, with 94 of the CoinDesk 100 constituents higher over 24 hours and the small-cap CoinDesk 80 advancing 4.7% compared with 1.2% for the bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 5.