Cryptocurrencies, gold, stocks battered by dovish Fed chief Powell

Cryptocurrencies are deep in the red today, dropping along with gold and stocks after the boss of America’s central bank struck a dovish stance and indicated he wouldn’t immediately try to stop surging bond yields.

US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell told a Wall Street Journal job summit that while last week’s sharp selloff of US Treasury bonds was “notable and caught my attention”, it wasn’t “disorderly” or likely to push long-term rates so high the Fed might have to intervene.

Powell also said he expected inflation to rise as the US economy reopened, indicating the Fed wouldn’t raise interest rates to try and stop that.

“We want inflation expectations to be anchored at two per cent,” Powell said. “Inflation is running below two per cent and has done so since the pandemic arrived.”

US stocks, cryptocurrencies and gold all slid in the minutes after Powell’s 5am AEDT speech, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbling to close down 2.1 per cent; gold dropping from $US1715 to a nine-month low of $1,694; silver dipping 0.5 per cent; and Bitcoin falling from around $US49,500 to about $US46,500.

The US dollar gained and bond yields surged further.

Powell did not deliver. Basically repeated his usual dovish lines, acknowledged treasury market is disorderly, yet indicated would not act on it yet – leading to continuation on the dollar up, bonds down, stocks down trends. $BTC dropped almost 4% on his speech.

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) March 4, 2021

Drop in crypto is large but it’s small adjusted by vol. Bitcoin has been relatively resilient. Issue with expecting much further downside in stocks is rates are the driver, and bonds are stretched here. FA says lower, TA says higher. I’m neither bullish nor bearish at present. pic.twitter.com/x1HypbKEKh

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) March 4, 2021

At 2.15pm AEDT, just 21 of the top 100 crypto-assets on Coingecko were trading higher, compared to where they were 24 hours ago. Seventy-seven were lower and one was flat.

Ethereum was down 8.65 per cent to $US1,485 ($1,937).

Chiliz soars

The best-performing asset top 100 asset in the past 24 hours is sporting platform Chiliz (CHZ), which rose 40 per cent to an all-time high of US13c, three days after the Malta-based company behind it said it would spend $US50 million on a US expansion that would include the launch of fan tokens for US sports leagues.

The company has until now focused mostly on European football, issuing non-fungible tokens in partnerships with clubs that allow holders to vote in polls and receive special promotions and rewards.

FC Barcelona is proud to announce a global partnership with blockchain platform @chiliz & @socios. Using the digital currency $CHZ, you’ll soon be able to buy Barça Fan Tokens, which give you the right to vote in club polls & earn rewards https://t.co/2NOhfsHV8i pic.twitter.com/a5GhCCo717

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) February 13, 2020

Chiliz tokens, which exist on the Ethereum blockchain, were changing hands for around US2.5c as recently as early February.

Cryptocurrency Prices by Coinlib

Theta Network (THETA) and Decentraland (MANA) tokens have also set all-time highs in the past 24 hours, according to Coingecko.

The worst-performing token in the past 24 hours to 2pm is Mdex (MDX), which is down 18 per cent. The coin serves as an automatic market-making feature in decentralised exchanges.