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Fed Cuts Interest Rates by 25 Basis Points, Bitcoin Slips Below $104K on Hawkish Tone

The price of bitcoin, already lower from yesterday, dipped below $104,000 in the minutes following the announcement.

The U.S. Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark fed funds rate by 25 basis points to the 4.25%- 4.50% range, its third consecutive easing move this year and now marking a total of 100 basis points of rate cuts since September.

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Market participants had fully expected Wednesday’s move by the central bank, but recent data had shown continued solid economic growth and perky inflation. This turned the focus today to the policy statement, updated economic projections and the upcoming press conference with Chairman Jerome Powell for clues about the Fed’s thinking on future policy actions.

The Fed’s quarterly economic projections — which include the “dot plot” indicating where the central bank expects the Fed funds rate to land over time — reveal that policymakers expect the Fed funds rate to decline to 3.9% by year-end 2025 or another 50 basis points in rate cuts next year. That’s higher than the 3.4% projected in September, signaling a less dovish monetary policy in 2025.

Already lower in the session, the price of bitcoin (BTC) traded slightly above $104,000 in the minutes following the announcement. The S&P 500 index also fell to a session low on Wednesday.

“I think the biggest headache for the Fed right now is the fact that financial conditions have still tightened despite the Fed cutting rates,” Andre Dragosch, European Head of Research at Bitwise, told CoinDesk prior to today’s action. “Long bond yields and mortgage rates have increased since September and the dollar has appreciated which also implies a tightening in financial conditions.”

“A continued appreciation of the US dollar also poses a macro risk for bitcoin since dollar appreciation is associated with global money supply contraction as well which tends to be bad for bitcoin and other crypto assets,” Dragosch continued. “In fact, Fed net liquidity continues to decrease. Tightening liquidity and strong dollar is also the biggest risk for BTC in my view … On the other hand, on-chain factors for BTC continue to be very supportive, in particular the ongoing decline in exchange balances which supports the hypothesis that the BTC supply deficit continues to intensify.”

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will hold a post-meeting press conference at 2:30 pm ET, which will provide further signals about the U.S. central bank’s intentions.

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Bitcoin Miners Are Expected to be Profitable in December, Jefferies Says

November was a strong month for the miners as the rally in bitcoin outpaced the rise in the network hashrate, the report said.

BTC’s rise to record highs earlier this week is expected to allow miners to extend their November profitability into December, according to a report by investment bank Jefferies on Wednesday.

Bitcoin mining economics improved in November as the average price of bitcoin was 31% higher while the average network hashrate rose by almost 4%, the report said.

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The hashrate, representing the total computing power dedicated to a network, is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty.

“Average daily revenue per exahash was $55,649, which represented a 20.7% month-on-month increase,” analysts Jonathan Petersen and Jan Aygul wrote.

U.S.-listed miners mined less bitcoin in November than the previous month, the bank said. Still, they mined more on a “network basis,” accounting for 24.7% of the total network.

The bank noted that uptime improved, which could be partly due to colder temperatures as winter approaches.

MARA Holdings (MARA) mined the most bitcoin, with 907 in November, and CleanSpark (CLSK) was second, with 622, the report noted.

MARA’s installed hashrate remained the largest in the sector at 46.1 exahashes per second (EH/s), followed by CleanSpark at 33.7 EH/s, the report added.

Read more: Bitcoin Mining Economics Continued to Improve in December, JPMorgan Says

VIX’s Second-Largest Spike in History Indicates a Local Bottom for Bitcoin: Van Straten

The VIX jumped 74% yesterday after a 25bps rate cut and a hawkish outlook from Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Wednesday, Dec. 18, will go down in history as a day of market panic triggered by the 25 basis point Fed rate cut and Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish outlook.

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly tumbled below $100,000; U.S. equities dropped around 3%, while the dollar index (DXY) index soared to a two-year high of 108, which continues to put pressure on currencies worldwide.

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The most significant movement came from the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which skyrocketed by 74%, marking the largest one-day jump in the Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge since Feb. 5, 2018. It was also the second-largest increase in its history. The VIX serves as a measure of market fear and expected volatility over the next 30 days.

Historically, significant spikes in the VIX have marked local bottoms for both bitcoin and the S&P 500.

Examining the top three one-day changes in the VIX, the first occurred on Feb. 5, 2018, when it surged by 116%. On that day, bitcoin plunged 16% to $6,891, which turned out to be a local bottom. By Feb. 20, prices had rebounded to over $11,000.

The second-largest spike in the VIX occurred on Dec. 18, registering a 74% increase.

The third biggest spike happened on Aug. 5, 2024, during the Yen carry trade unwind, when the VIX jumped 65%. On that occasion, bitcoin dropped 6% to hit a local bottom around $54,000 and climbed back up to over $64,000 by Aug. 23.

A similar pattern has consistently played out in the S&P 500 over the years, data shared by Charlie Bilello, chief market strategist at Creative Planning, show.

Let’s see if history repeats itself. At press time, BTC traded above $102,000 while the S&P 500 futures pointed to a positive open with a 0.37% gain.

Craig Wright Faces Demand for Two-Year Prison Sentence in Contempt-of-Court Case

COPA claims Wright’s attempt to sue for intellectual property rights related to bitcoin violate a July court order.

Craig Wright, who falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, is in court again.

This time, the Crypto Open Patent Alliances is arguing Wright’s attempt to sue for 900 million pounds ($1.1 billion) over intellectual property rights related to the Bitcoin system in October amounts to contempt of court after a judge ruled in March that he was barred from pursuing proceedings related to his claim to be Nakamoto.

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The two-day trial is due to end later Thursday and COPA, whose backers include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), is seeking a prison sentence.

“COPA proposes an order committing Dr Wright for an initial term of 18 months and a further term of six months in the event that he does not mitigate his contempt by promptly discontinuing the claims which breach the order,” COPA set out in its skeleton argument, court documents show.

In March, Justice James Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto. Mellor then issued a court order preventing Wright from pursuing proceedings in the U.K. and other jurisdictions related to the claim.

“Dr. Wright is perfectly capable, once the dust has settled, of ramping up his public pronouncements again,” Mellor wrote at the time.

Prior to COPA’s victory, Wright had brought several court cases against the bitcoin community around the bitcoin whitepaper, libel suits as well as claims against developers.

Founder of DeFi Giant Curve Gets Liquidated Again as CRV Slumps

Curve founder Michael Egorov played down the $882,000 liquidation on X.

Curve founder Michael Egorov was liquidated for 918.83K CRV ($882,000) after CRV fell by more than 12% over the past 24-hours.

The head honcho of the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform suffered a series of mammoth liquidations earlier in 2024 after taking out loans to purchase CRV and bolster the price. $140 million in total was liquidated in June.

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“Many of you are aware that I had all my loans liquidated. Size of my positions was too large for markets to handle and caused 10M of bad debt,” Egorov wrote at the time.

The most recent of those purchases was worth $1.2 million on Dec. 17, at which point CRV was at trading at $1.11 before it tumbled to around $0.91 on Thursday.

Egorov took to X following Thursday’s liquidation, stating that the liquidated CRV was tied to the uWu hack in June and that the liquidation was simply a “receipt of Sifu’s [uWu’s founder] promise to repay the hacked funds.”

This didn’t prevent further selling, however, as CRV significantly underperformed against the CoinDesk 20 Index, which is down by 4.81% at the time of writing against CRV’s decline of 12%.

Total value locked (TVL) on the Curve platform is down from $3.5 billion on Dec. 16 to $3.25 billion on Thursday, although much of that can be attributed to dwindling asset prices.

More Than Half of Crypto Tokens Debuted in 2024 Were Malicious: Blockaid

As much as $1.4 billion was lost to crypto scams and fraud in 2024, Blockain said.

EMBARGOED UNTIL 19 DECEMBER 2024 @ 9:00 AM ET

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Blockchain security firm Blockaid said a full 59% of crypto tokens introduced this year were “malicious in nature.”

The number of nefarious tokens being sold into the open market ties in with the rising memecoin narrative that has been consistent throughout this cycle.

There are now 10 memecoins with a market cap of $1 billion or greater and this relative success has led to copycat tokens being launched on Ethereum, Base and Solana among other chains.

Rug-pull scams remain a prevalent threat, making up 27% of malicious tokens, Blockaid said.

It’s worth noting, however, that the amount lost to cryptocurrency hacks and scams shrank dramatically. The FBI said that in 2023, $5.6 billion was lost to crypto scams, while this year the total is $1.4 billion, according to Blockaid’s report.

Blockaid’s data stems from an on-chain detection and response (ODR) platform that processed 2.41 billion transactions, 780 million dapp connections, and 220 million tokens in 2024.

Aptos Labs CEO Mo Shaikh Quits; Avery Ching to Take His Place

The Aptos co-founder is sticking around as a strategic adviser, though.

Mo Shaikh, co-founder of Aptos Labs, announced that he’s stepping down as CEO of the company.

Aptos is a layer-1 blockchain that claims to offer enhanced scalability, security and transaction speeds. The platform leverages a unique blockchain programming language called Move, which was originally created for Facebook’s shuttered “Diem” project.

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In a lengthy post on X, Shaikh, who co-founded Aptos with Avery Ching three years ago, expressed pride in the progress made by the company, which included raising a mammoth $400 million in venture capital funding and building “one of the most robust ecosystems, trusted by over a thousand builders and innovators around the globe.”

https://twitter.com/moshaikhs/status/1869851984129569194

Ching, Shaikh said, will assume the role of CEO and lead the company into its next phase of growth.

In his X post, Shaikh acknowledged the work of Aptos’ partners and investors, including firms like BlackRock, Google, Mastercard and PayPal.

“None of this would have been possible without the unwavering support of our incredible investors. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Dragonfly, Blocktower, Haun Ventures, Hashed, IRONGREY, a16z, Apollo, Coinbase, Parafi, Scribble, PayPal, Franklin Templeton, and the amazing angels who believed in our vision,” he wrote.

Shaikh said he will remain with the company as a strategic adviser and plans to take time to reflect on the future of blockchain and financial systems. “I will always remain a champion of Aptos and its mission,” he wrote, adding that he will “look forward to continuing to help Aptos maintain its role as the world’s leading blockchain.”

Michael Saylor: The Architect of MicroStrategy’s Huge Bitcoin Bet

Most companies were leery of Saylor’s strategy when he started amassing bitcoin back in 2020. Some are no longer skeptical.

Michael Saylor’s decades-old software development firm MicroStrategy blazed the path for corporate bitcoin purchases beginning in 2020. Through massive securities sales, he’s managed to fund the purchase of billions of dollars worth of bitcoin for his company. Tesla and Block dabbled in the strategy in years past. After the ugly crypto winter put a damper on that, in 2024, other publicly traded companies like Semler Scientific copied the idea. Is it a fad like adding “Blockchain” to corporate names in the 2010s to juice stock returns, or is hoarding bitcoin on balance sheets (including the U.S. government’s) something enduring? Saylor has bought the original crypto through thick and thin, so the test will be whether the trend persists beyond the current red-hot moment following Donald Trump’s election. But there’s no denying Saylor’s laser eyes sparked something.

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This profile is part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2024 package. For all of this year’s nominees, click here [ADD LINK BEFORE PUBLISHING].

Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart: The Bloomberg ETF Bros

The two analysts had their fingers on the pulse of one of crypto’s biggest financial stories of 2024.

Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart sit on one of the most traditional finance (TradFi if you’re hip to the lingo) perches out there: Mike Bloomberg’s gazillion-dollar news, data and analysis business. Yet, as all of crypto anxiously awaited word in early 2024 on whether U.S. regulators would approve bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the Bloomberg analysts were must-listen-to experts in crypto.

Their day jobs entail examining all things ETF. For a few weeks or maybe months, there was no hotter story for them than bitcoin, and Balchunas and Seyffart were in the social media trenches, armed with de rigueur memes, telling degens and pros alike whether it was likely to be a “yay” or “nay” for the widely anticipated products. (They correctly leaned toward “yay.”)

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Balchunas caught a very early glimpse of how intense the buzz around bitcoin ETFs could get, tweeting way back in 2013: “Crazy: Just the mere reg filing of a bitcoin ETF has already gotten more press/tweets than the dozens of new & useful ETF launches combined.”

Robin Linus: Scaling Crypto’s Premier Network

The developer behind BitVM is facilitating the building of more and more applications atop Bitcoin.

Robin Linus shook up the crypto development landscape in October 2023 with a whitepaper presenting a theoretical method for making Bitcoin more programmable. “BitVM,” as it was known, was followed by a second iteration, “BitVM2”, in August 2024, revealing improvements that could bring the concept closer to implementation.

The introduction of BitVM by Linus, a core contributor at ZeroSync Association, a Swiss non-profit organization based in the canton of Zug, was hailed as a breakthrough because it didn’t require any changes to Bitcoin’s code. Just the publication of Linus’s original design for BitVM helped to inspire a fervor for building projects on Bitcoin.

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The aim of BitVM2 is to enable a rollup — essentially a separate auxiliary network built atop Bitcoin — that can handle faster and cheaper transactions, but without compromising the network’s security. This could then allow a bridge that could be used to securely transfer BTC to the rollup, and later bring the BTC back so that deposits can be withdrawn.

Linus’ work is providing the foundations for some of the most notable ventures in the Bitcoin development sector, such as Rootstock’s “BitVMX” project, and hybrid Bitcoin and Ethereum layer-2 BOB (“Build on Bitcoin”), which aims to make the original blockchain network the center of the DeFi universe.

This profile is part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2024 package. For all of this year’s nominees, click here [INSERT LINK BEFORE PUBLISHING].