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Fed Chair Jerome Powell said bitcoin is competing against gold, not the U.S. dollar, in an appearance on Wednesday.
By Tom Carreras, James Van Straten, Krisztian Sandor|Edited by Nikhilesh De
Dec 4, 2024, 8:25 p.m. UTC
What to know:
- Ether is benefiting from capital inflows reminiscent of 2021.
- Bitcoin and Solana are both losing dominance.
- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell shared his thoughts on bitcoin and crypto at the DealBook Summit.
Having long lagged behind bitcoin (BTC) in terms of price action, ether (ETH) saw some solid gains on Wednesday, rising 8% to over $3,880 in the last 24 hours.
The second largest cryptocurrency’s price benefitted from $800 million worth of shorts closing their positions, according to Tom Dunleavy, a partner at venture studio Master Global. But it’s also profiting from a capital influx reminiscent of the 2021 bull market, CoinDesk Senior Analyst James Van Straten pointed out.
Story continues below
Bitcoin’s dominance peaked on Nov. 21 at 61.85% and has since slumped to 54.84%, Van Straten noted. Solana’s dominance has also tanked. “BTC has stayed flat, so ETH is playing catch up,” Van Straten said.
That also explains why so many coins in the CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins, memecoins, and exchange coins — are performing so well. While the index itself is only up 1.83% today (weighed down by bitcoin’s lackluster 1.52% gain), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Filecoin (IOU), Polkadot (DOT) and Uniswap (UNI) have surged 22%, 18%, 17% and 16% respectively over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin did not strongly react to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit. Powell only briefly touched on inflation, stating that the U.S. central bank can afford to act cautiously in its search for fiscal neutrality, before CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him whether bitcoin’s rise was due to investor fears about the fate of the U.S. dollar.
“People use bitcoin as a speculative asset,” Powell said. “It’s like gold, only it’s virtual, it’s digital. People aren’t using it as a form of payment or as a store of value. It’s highly volatile. It’s not a competitor for the dollar, it’s really a competitor for gold.”
Powell further stated that when it came to the integration of crypto in the financial system, the priority was to safeguard the health and stability of the banking system, alongside consumer protection.
Tom was sucked into crypto in 2020 and is very much enjoying the ride. Now a markets reporter for CoinDesk, he previously wrote for DL News about bitcoin ETFs, the Federal Reserve, bitcoin mining and crypto adoption in Latin America. He has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from McGill University and can usually be found in Costa Rica. He holds BTC, ETH and SOL above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.
As the senior analyst at CoinDesk, specializing in Bitcoin and the macro environment. Previously, working as a research analyst at Saidler & Co., a Swiss hedge fund, introduced to on-chain analytics. James specializes in daily monitoring of ETFs, spot and futures volumes, and flows to understand how Bitcoin interacts within the financial system. James holds more than $1,000 worth of bitcoin, MicroStrategy (MSTR), Semler Scientific (SMLR), IREN (IREN), MARA Holdings (MARA), Cipher Mining (CIFR), Bitfarms (BITF), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and CleanSpark (CLSK).
Krisztian Sandor recently graduated from NYU’s business and economic reporter program as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Reuters and Forbes previously. Originally from Budapest, Hungary, he is now based in New York. He holds BTC and ETH.
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