Bitcoin dipped to $78,442 after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh used his first Jackson Hole keynote to say recent inflation prints have not meaningfully improved the underlying trend. The coin held near $80,000 as traders weighed a Fed chair who declined to signal his next move, while derivatives positioning stayed in focus for further gains.
Bitcoin dipped to $78,442 on Bitstamp, down around 1% at the time, after Warsh delivered his first keynote speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium and struck a cautious tone on inflation. The price then circled back toward $79,500 as markets digested the remarks.
Warsh downplays the inflation improvement
Warsh told the Kansas City Fed's symposium that this summer's Consumer Price Index and Personal Consumption Expenditures readings came in better than expected but do not show underlying trends have meaningfully improved. He also used the speech to retire forward guidance, the Fed's practice of hinting at future rate moves since the 2008 crisis, saying: "the practice has overstayed its welcome."
The Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index, is running at 3.7% annually — nearly double the Fed's 2% target. 54% of tracked goods and services have posted price gains above 3% over the past year, Warsh said.
Traders trim rate-cut bets, stocks hold steady
Markets pared expectations after the speech: CME FedWatch data showed the odds of a September hike easing to 38.4%, down from 82% a month earlier, with the rest of traders pricing in no change. Equities shrugged off the remarks, as the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both traded up around 0.5%.
Rally context and the path higher
The dip followed a sharp climb: bitcoin was up 26.35% month-to-date, Cointelegraph reported, citing CoinGlass data, marking its best August performance since 2017. That advance built on the prior week's move by the Treasury Department to double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks, which sent yields and the dollar lower and lifted non-yielding assets such as bitcoin and gold, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
Trading firm QCP Capital said sustained gains above $83,300 hinge on whether spot participation or leveraged positioning drives the next move, rather than on Warsh's remarks alone.
Sources: Federal Reserve, Cointelegraph.com News, Bitcoin Magazine, Decrypt
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
