Bitcoin climbed above $64,400 after the Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate at 3.50%-3.75% on Wednesday, then gave back the move when Chair Kevin Warsh opened his press conference by saying, "There is no soft inflation target."
BTC was trading just under $64,000 at press time, up about 1% over 24 hours.
The reaction shows crypto traders are taking their cues from Warsh's inflation rhetoric rather than the rate decision itself, which markets had mostly priced in.
The hold came with an unusual twist: three FOMC members — Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, and Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan — dissented in favor of a 25 basis point hike, the first time in years markets went into a Fed meeting split on whether the central bank would raise rates. Futures had assigned roughly 35% odds to a hike.
Second Meeting, Harder Tone
The decision was the second under Warsh, who took over the Fed this year after President Donald Trump nominated him to replace Jerome Powell. The statement said inflation "remains elevated" relative to the 2% goal, "in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy," and that economic activity is expanding "despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East."
Warsh told Congress earlier this month he has "no tolerance" for elevated inflation, and he has criticized the Fed's use of forward guidance and the quarterly dot plot, leaving traders with less visibility into the path ahead of the Sept. 15-16 meeting.
The macro backdrop did crypto no favors going into the announcement. Oil jumped after Trump said the U.S. would respond forcefully to attacks on American personnel in the Middle East, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.62%, near its high for the year, and the Dow fell almost 400 points in early trading before paring losses after the hold.
Muted Majors, Fearful Tape
Ethereum traded near $1,900 and XRP around $1.06, both little changed on the day. The total crypto market cap stood at about $2.29 trillion, up 2.2% over 24 hours, while the Crypto Fear & Greed Index sat at 35, in fear territory. Gold rose 1.2% on the day, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq trimmed early losses after the decision before the Nasdaq turned 0.4% lower during Warsh's remarks.
The hold extends a pause that has now run six consecutive meetings, a stretch in which Bitcoin has fallen from above $83,000 in late January, when a risk sell-off deepened across markets, and dipped under $76,000 when the Fed held rates in a rare 8-4 split under Powell.
$KAITO Keeps Climbing
$KAITO led gainers among the top 300 tokens, up 21% to $1.34. The token of the AI-powered attention platform has more than doubled in July on a retail buying wave. Audiera (BEAT) rose 21% to $3.84, extending a multi-day run, while Holoworld (HOLO) added 17% and Velvet (VELVET) gained 13%.
Among larger caps, Monero (XMR) climbed 4.4% to $354.34 on more than $106 million in volume, and Cardano (ADA) rose 6.1% to $0.168. Jupiter (JUP) added 5.6%.
Zcash's $ZEC also drew attention after the network activated its Ironwood upgrade, with about $80 million of $ZEC migrating to the new shielded pool in the first day.
DeXe Leads the Losers
DeXe (DEXE) fell 9.5% to $2.78 on nearly $80 million in volume, leading top-300 decliners. Kite (KITE) dropped 7.3%, EigenCloud (EIGEN), the restaking protocol formerly known as EigenLayer, slid 6.8% to $0.1846, and Bitway (BTW) lost 6.2%. LayerZero (ZRO) fell 4.3% and Ethena (ENA) 4.1%, with no obvious catalysts behind the moves.
Further down the rankings, Lorenzo Protocol's $BANK extended its collapse, down 48% to $0.18 on more than $215 million in volume. The Bitcoin liquid-staking token had surged nearly 500% in a week to a $0.27 all-time high on July 20 after traders spotted 84 million $BANK moving from a foundation-linked wallet to a deposit address tied to Aster, the perpetuals exchange associated with Changpeng Zhao. The unwind has now erased most of that rally.
