Crypto markets in the red ahead of the Fed’s annual fishing trip

Financial market participants will keep a watchful eye on Wyoming this week, where Fed chair Jerome Powell is set to speak on Friday.
Bitcoin traded below $26,000 on Monday, and Ethereum was around $1,660. Both failed to recover losses from late last week.

Happy Monday!

US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will speak from Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week. Market participants will comb through his words for hints about upcoming interest rate decisions.

Crypto prices continued to trade lower after the market crashed toward the end of last week.

Let’s get down to business!

Macro matters

Powell will address the annual Jackson Hole symposium on Friday. Investors will sift through his speech, looking for potential key insights into the central bank’s upcoming interest rate decisions.

The speech will come on the back of hawkish remarks in the Fed’s July meeting minutes. The publication of those minutes spooked investors last week, sending markets lower.

Last year, crypto markets whipsawed following Powell’s Jackson Hole speech — when he stressed that price stability was the “bedrock” of the US economy.

Inflation has come down in the 12 months since his last appearance, and interest rates are at the highest levels in over two decades.

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Markets expect a pause at the central bank’s next meeting on September 20. The bank’s policy-setting committee will have more inflation and jobs data to digest before then, and things could change.

Why Wyoming?

Jackson Hole is the venue for the Fed’s annual symposium because of one of Powell’s more notable predecessors —

Paul Volcker, who raised interest rates to over 11% in the late 1970s to combat inflation.

But why Wyoming? To entice Volcker to attend, fellow Fed leaders decided to locate the event in close proximity to good fly fishing — the perfect lure for an avid fisherman.

Crypto market movers

Bitcoin continues to trade below $26,000, down 0.8% over the past day and 11.5% over the past week.
Ethereum slid 0.4% since Sunday, and just under 10% in the last seven days. Reports on Friday that an Ethereum futures exchange-traded fund looks set to be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission did little to improve the digital assets price.

What we’re reading

Why crypto journalists must fact-check everything – DL News
The Guidance: How to stay on top of UK’s crypto agenda – DL News

Adam Morgan McCarthy is a London-based markets correspondent for DL News. To contact him with story tips, reach out at adam@dlnews.com.