Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies soared Thursday along with other risk-on assets buoyed by a U.S.-U.K. trade deal, and despite President Donald Trump’s latest attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates. The largest cryptocurrency by market value cracked $100,000 for the first time since February on Thursday morning New York time. BTC was recently trading over $101,289 after jumping more than 5% over the past 24 hours, crypto markets data provider CoinGecko shows.
On Wednesday, the Fed decided to keep interest rates unchanged, angering Trump, who for weeks has been pressuring Powell to lower the cost of borrowing, even threatening to fire him. In remarks from the White House oval office to announce a trade deal with Great Britain, Trump criticized Powell anew. “The chairman of the Fed, Jerome, if he would lower interest rates…like numerous other countries, it would be like jet fuel,” Trump said. “It would be great.”
Trump added: “He doesn’t want to do it because he’s not in love with me,” Earlier in the day on his Truth Social platform, the president called Powell a “fool.” Bitcoin has historically done well in a low interest rate environment. With low interest rates, investors tend to buy more “risk-on” assets like stocks and crypto. President Trump also said during a Thursday press conference that investors should buy stocks now.
Other digital assets surging on Thursday included Ethereum, the second biggest virtual coin, which broke the $2,053 for the first time since early March and was up by more than 14% from the same time, the previous day. The cryptocurrency’s price recently stood at $2,047. XRP and Solana rose more than 6% and 10%, respectively. Traditional safe-haven asset gold, meanwhile, was down more than 2%. Major equity indexes were also up, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each jumping more than 1% amid investor hopefulness for an end to Trump’s trade hostilities.
