Former Fed Official Talks About Interest Rates: Will Bitcoin be Affected?

• Financial markets are generally waiting for the US Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates.
• With expectations that the central bank will halt its interest rate hike process, the S&P 500 Index rose 0.93% on Monday, while the Nasdaq Index rose 1.53%.
• Therefore, in an uncertain environment, risky assets may be preferred by traders, which could lead to increased volatility in the crypto market.

Crypto market investors are focused on the Fed interest rate announcement on Wednesday; could Bitcoin be affected?

Markets Await Fed Interest Decision

Ahead of the important Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting scheduled for June 14, 2023, financial markets are generally waiting for the US Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates.

With expectations that the central bank will halt its interest rate hike process, the S&P 500 Index rose 0.93% on Monday, while the Nasdaq Index rose 1.53%. However, it remains to be seen whether there will be any real deviation in the markets when the announcement is made that interest rate hikes will be paused.

Meanwhile, former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson says ongoing market optimism has led the market to believe that the Fed’s interest rate hike is already priced in. Therefore, it can be argued that there may not be much room for a bull market in financial markets. However, the same may not be true for the Bitcoin price and cryptocurrencies.

Former Fed official Roger Ferguson acknowledged that the market was right to expect the Fed to pause its interest rate hike. However, he said that not everything was good in the Fed’s quantitative easing policy. Referring to a tight labor market and rising wages, Ferguson noted that despite the market expecting a easing path for policy, there could be more interest rate hikes in the rest of 2023.

Therefore, in an uncertain environment, risky assets may be preferred by traders, which could lead to increased volatility in the crypto market.

The CME FedWatch Tool shows that there is about a 21% chance that the Fed will change its federal target rate.

As another positive sign for the Bitcoin price to rise for the rest of 2023, banking and financial services company ING is said to predict that the US dollar could be relatively lower at the end of the year, based on information shared by Twitter user Walter Bloomberg. This is based on a contrarian view that the Fed could cut interest rates in the fourth quarter.