Mooners and Shakers: Bitcoin and crypto market slightly up but hawkish Fed looms in background

It’s pretty green across the crypto majors today and that’s nice to see. But, yet again, it appears the US Federal Reserve is trying its best to keep markets at bay.

Macro-minded eyes have been on the release today of the US Fed’s most recent FOMC meeting minutes, with mild hopes at play that there might be some kind of sign of a pivot in 2023 – an easing of the inflation-combatting rate-hiking that drove much of the narrative for markets in 2022.

According to several reports and pundits, though, the American central bank is still sounding fairly hawkish for the forseeable.

From FOMC minutes just released:

“No participants anticipated that it would be appropriate to
begin reducing the federal funds rate target in 2023.”

— Benjamin Cowen (@intocryptoverse) January 4, 2023

FOMC meeting minutes “were modestly hawkish,” showing concern that “markets may have a (dovish) ‘misperception’” which may “complicate” the process of lowering inflation: Citi’s Hollenhorst. “We continue to expect a 50bp hike in February and a 5.25-5.50% terminal range.”

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) January 4, 2023

That’s not amazing news for markets, but then again, as Sven “Northman Trader” Henrich points out here… there have been plenty of instances in the past where the Fed hasn’t exactly stuck to its guns.

As a reminder: Fed minutes in 2018 called for 3-4 more rate hikes in 2019. Instead they cut 3 times.
In Dec 2021 they "predicted" a Fed funds rate of less than 1% for '22 instead they ended at 4.33%.

Fed minutes and projections have absolutely no predictive value whatsoever.

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) January 4, 2023

Meanwhile, as Aussie market analyst Tony Sycamore shows, US stocks have actually somewhat gained since the Fed’s minutes were released a few hours ago. Go figure, eh?

U.S #equity #markets gained o/n despite the Minutes from the Fed’s Dec meeting remaining hawkish.

The #SP500 needs to reclaim resistance at 3910/20 & then see a sustained break ⬆️ the 200-day ma now at 4007 & downtrend resistance at 4045 to negate downside risks. #stocks pic.twitter.com/xRX1swUDgI

— Tony Sycamore_IG (@Tony_Sycamore) January 4, 2023

And, ahem, just leaving this here, too…

2023 will be the most widely predicted and anticipated recession in the history of humankind. Therefore both markets and economic actors have front-run it. Which by definition reduces the probability of it happening and its magnitude if it does (in the US).

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) January 4, 2023

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$853 billion, up about 1.5% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

While Bitcoin coyishly toys with the idea of a return to US$17k, it’s the layer 1 and layer 2 smart contract platforms that appear to be performing the best over the past 24 hours, including Ethereum, BNB, Cardano and Polygon.

The latter, as we yesterday thought it might, has reclaimed it’s spot in the to 10, bumping out the exchange token OKB.

Polygon’s growth in terms of partnerships and adoption both within and outside of crypto was a sight to behold in 2022, even if its MATIC token’s price action (like most other projects) wasn’t.

One of the great things about @0xPolygon is its interoperability with Ethereum.
Easily transfer tokens and assets between the two blockchains.

Thank you @sandeepnailwal and the core team to onbording so many big names into #Web3 #Polygon #blockchain #Ethereum #solution #NFTs pic.twitter.com/vypF8xAE7M

— Manny V / Crypto Crew (@lekrakenpv) January 4, 2023

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6.9 billion to about US$287 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

DAILY PUMPERS

• Ethereum Classic (ETC), (market cap: US$2.6 billion) +21%

• Near Protocol (NEAR), (mc: US$1.3 billion) +16%

• Lido DAO (LDO), (mc: US$1.15 billion) +16%

• Filecoin (FIL), (mc: US$1.2 billion) +15%

• Rocket Pool (RPL), (mc: US$431 million) +8%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• OKB (OKB), (market cap: US$6.9 billion) -3%

• Huobi (HT), (market cap: US$847 million) -2%

• OKC (OKT), (mc: US$475 million) -1%

• Litecoin (LTC), (mc: US$5.4 billion) -1%

Around the blocks

Some randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

More trouble brewing with DCG and Genesis?

UPDATE: DCG/Genesis is under active investigation by the SEC.

**sources confirmed that there are multiple whistleblowers that have come forward.

— Andrew (@AP_Abacus) January 4, 2023

Good to see Wolverine is pro-btc now

— BowTiedBull – Read Pinned Tweet or NGMI (@BowTiedBull) January 4, 2023

Blockbuster laughed us out of their offices. We were crushed, desperate and out of options.

But sometimes, the only way out is through.

— Marc Randolph (@mbrandolph) January 4, 2023