Cryptocurrency News & Market Updates

The Week In One Paragraph

The Federal Reserve held at 3.75 to 4.00 percent on 28 October by a 10 to 2 vote, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland’s Beth Hammack both preferring a quarter-point increase, and the statement said the committee will wait for “the accumulation of more information” before deciding. Next week delivers the first instalment of that information: the October jobs report on Friday 6 November, the first of two the committee will see before its 8 to 9 December meeting, where it also publishes new projections. The data it has already seen cut both ways. The economy grew 3.4 percent annualised in the third quarter and core PCE ran 3.1 percent on the year in September, but payrolls rose only 29,000 in September with July and August revised down a combined 60,000, so the hawks have the inflation argument and the doves have the jobs argument, and Friday decides which one December turns on. Before Friday, the long end gets two tests of its own: the midterm elections on Tuesday and the Treasury’s quarterly refunding statement on Wednesday, which will say whether coupon auction sizes stay frozen. For bitcoin the week opens from a weak place. BTC closed at 84,103 on the Bitfinex daily candle on 20 October and traded near 77,600 on 30 October, down about 7.7 percent in 10 days, and it fell 4.1 percent on 29 October, the day the 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.98 percent and the 10-year real yield to 2.63 percent. Lower yields are still not reaching crypto, which is the view we have carried for two issues, and nothing on next week’s calendar changes that unless Friday’s print is weak enough to take the December increase off the table.