Bitcoin Sinks to 25.5K, Altcoins Tumble, as Investors Shrug Off Fed Rate Hike Pause

Bitcoin fell to $25,530 on Wednesday, as investors shrugged off the U.S. central bank’s widely expected halt to a more than year-long diet of interest rate hikes. Major altcoins took a late afternoon dive to sink into negative territory.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading down about 1.2% over the past 24 hours after a late afternoon (ET) drop. BTC has largely been treading water nearer $26,000 for most of the past five days as investors weighed the initial impact of Securities and U.S.  Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuits against crypto exchange giants Binance and Coinbase, Fed monetary policy signals and other macroeconomic uncertainties.

“The Fed has left rates unchanged, which was expected by the market given the macroeconomic situation,” Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto asset manager BitBull Capital, wrote in a note to CoinDesk. “The initial move has been toward the downside, since the Fed indicated that this pause is likely not going to last.”

DiPasquale added: “From a markets perspective, as long as Bitcoin maintains $25K, we should continue to see consolidation.”

Ether was recently changing hands at $1,680, down 3.1% from Tuesday, same time. Other major cryptos mentioned in the SEC actions plunged late with ADA, the token of the Cardano blockchain recently down more than 5% but SOL and MATIC, the native cryptos of the Solana and Polygon smart contract networks, each off more than 3%. The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of crypto markets overall performance, was recently trading sideways. The CoinDesk Bitcoin and Ether Trend Indicators maintained their days-long stances in downtrend territory, reflecting ongoing investor skittishness.

Still, indicator was pointing bullishly. A price pattern called “throwback” has emerged on bitcoin’s daily chart that could recharge bulls’ engines for a rally toward $37,000, according to Valkyrie Investments. In technical analysis, a throwback is a price drop to a former breakout level or resistance-turned-support. After a breakout, prices rally for some days before losing upward momentum and returning to the breakout point. More often than not, prices surge after the throwback is completed, Thomas Bulkowski detailed in his book “Visual Guide to Chart Patterns.”

Meanwhile, equity indexes fell amid longer-term concerns that the current rate increase cessation will be temporary as the Fed focuses on cutting inflation to a longstanding 2.5% target. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 inched up ever-so-slightly but the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 0.7%.

Still, in an email to CoinDesk, Markus Levin, co-founder of blockchain geospatial oracle system XYO Network, struck an upbeat note, writing that “the global macro setup is shifting significantly,” with the “rate-hike pause the clearest indication yet of this shift. Inflation is falling fast. Global central banks are injecting liquidity to stimulate their economies. And now the focus is on growth and whether we’ll actually experience a broad-based and deep recession.”

Levin added that bitcoin and other digital assets have “likely already hit the bottom.”

“I expect there to be sideways action for BTC and other coins for some months ahead, punctuated by bouts of volatility,” he wrote. “When the BTC halving kicks in next year, however, then I think we’re off to the races.”