Bitcoin Falls to $18,600 After US Federal Reserve Announces Another Interest Rate Hike

The US Federal Reserve once again raised the key interest rates on Wednesday by 75 basis points. The impact of this hike was no different than what was expected out of the markets, as the US stock markets dipped into the red after the decision. The crypto market, however, did not react as terribly. As things stand, the value of Bitcoin sees a dip of 0.73 percent in the last 24 hours with its price now around the $18,700 (roughly Rs. 15.06 lakh) mark across global exchanges while Indian exchanges like CoinDCX value BTC at $20,213 (roughly Rs. 16.28 lakh), 1.57 percent lower than that on Wednesday morning.

On global exchanges like CoinMarketCap, Coinbase, and Binance the price of Bitcoin stands at $18,693 (roughly Rs. 15.05 lakh) while CoinGecko data shows that BTC's value now sits 8 percent lower than where it stood last Thursday.

Ether has also seen a steep decline after a bit of a surge on Monday, and Tuesday. Ether is currently down by more than 4 percent over the past 24 hours, trading in the $1,260 (roughly Rs. 1.02 lakh) range across global exchanges. Meanwhile, on Indian exchanges, ETH is valued at $1,376 (roughly Rs. 1.1 lakh) where values are down by 4.78 percent over the past day.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals that most major altcoins had a similar slide over the past day. The global crypto market capitalisation also witnessed a drop of 2.01 percent through late Wednesday and early Thursday.

Cosmos, Solana, Polygon, TRON, Monero, Chainlink, and BNB all saw heavy losses over the last 24 hours. Cardano, Avalanche, and Uniswap, on the other hand, managed minor gains despite the air of bearishness.

Memecoins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin saw minor slip-ups too. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.05 (roughly Rs. 4.653) after losing 2.73 percent in value over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000010 (roughly Rs. 0.000846), down 1.03 percent over the past day.

"The Federal Reserve continued its rapid quantitative tightening strategy on September 21, hiking interest rates by another 75 bps for the third consecutive time, strengthening their stance to rein in inflation to meet their eventual 2 percent CPI target from the current excess of 8 percent," the research team at CoinDCX tells Gadgets 360.

"The pressure is still on for another significant hike the next few months as the FED targets a funds rate in excess of 4 percent by the end of the year, especially on the backdrop of brimming payroll data and increased service inflation in an overheated labour market with expectations of another 75bps next month or even a 100bps likely in the near future. With today's 75bps hike, US interest rates reached 3.25 percent, the highest it has ever been since 2008, a testament to the times and the hawkishness currently driving market sentiment."

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