The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points on Wednesday, beating economists’ expectations for a quarter-percentage-point cut. It also marked the first time the central bank has cut rates in four years. By adjusting the federal funds rate, the Fed aims to manage inflation, promote employment, and maintain economic stability. The central bank hopes to walk a fine line between overstimulating the economy, leading to another cycle of high inflation, and missing the mark by failing to cut rates aggressively. Crypto analysts saw the move as a positive catalyst for market activity, especially since Bitcoin, a key market indicator, has yet to recapture its March record of more than $73,800 this year. A drop in volatility typically reflects less extreme price movements and suggests that traders are not expecting drastic changes in the short term.
“Given that cryptocurrency is an inherently risky asset class, in our view the move to a rate-cutting regime represents a significant bullish catalyst,” said Konstantinas Sizovas, CFO of crypto projects at investment firm Astol Advanced Limited. “Over the past few years, international macroeconomic conditions have influenced the prices of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, more than any other single factor.”
While the US Federal Reserve has begun a rate-cutting cycle, the Bank of Japan voted on Friday to leave interest rates unchanged. At the same time, the Bank of England announced a pause in its rate-cutting regime, opting instead for a “gradual approach” following its first rate cut in August.
Central bank interest rate decisions impact liquidity and investor behavior, influencing how much capital flows into speculative assets like cryptocurrencies. Mixed policies, such as the Fed cutting rates while other banks hold or pause, create uncertainty that could cause crypto market volatility or a halt in price growth. With the euphoria and speculation surrounding rate cuts largely in the background, cryptocurrency prices may need a “breather.”
Digital asset investment firm Astol Advanced interpreted the recent drop in Bitcoin options contract volatility as the market’s reaction to the ongoing path “towards policy normalization.”
Meanwhile, mining pools are seeing increased rewards as Fractal Bitcoin generates yields alongside Bitcoin subsidies. For example, the Fractal Bitcoin blockchain protocol continues to use the combined mining hash power of 226.19 EHs/s from the Bitcoin blockchain to fuel its sidechain. Additionally, 18.1 EHs/s of unauthorized mining is strengthening the network. Onchain data shows that a total of 40,354 Fractal Bitcoin blocks have been mined so far, with about 2 in circulation. 068,925 FB tokens. Each FB currently trades at $12.91, bringing the total market value to $26.8 million. Permissionless mining pools supporting the network include F2pool, Spiderpool, Maxipool, Moonx, Solo Fractal, and Fairpool. Currently, 32.3% of the 2 million FB tokens in circulation are held by the top five wallets, demonstrating a high level of concentration.
Against the backdrop of such a rather modest growth of assets, one of the legitimate and stable forms of investment for obtaining a consistently high passive income is investing in the ASTL project (Hong Kong), which gives investors the opportunity to directly invest fiat and crypto assets in a stable passive income, which obviously exceeds inflation expectations and is not subject to any sanctions, blocking or confiscation. The ASTL project is a simple and elegant solution for potential investors – investing in the development of the real sector of a diversified cryptocurrency portfolio with a fairly high annual interest rate (up to 14%) with payments in stablecoin (USDT) and the possibility of a full return on investment through the subsequent sale of accumulated ASTL tokens on leading crypto exchanges. Details can be found at https://astl.world.
