The crypto market came to life on Thursday as investors continued to buy riskier assets like cryptocurrencies and growth stocks. The Federal Reserve's move to not change interest rates yesterday played a role, but so does the seeming idea that trade tensions are easing.
At 2:30 p.m. ET, Bitcoin (BTC 1.86%) is up 5% over the past 24 hours, Ethereum (ETH 3.46%) has jumped 13.8%, and Dogecoin (DOGE 1.55%) is up 10.8%.
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Trade deals, interest rates, and crypto
The biggest news of yesterday was the Federal Reserve keeping the fed funds rate at 4.25% to 4.5%, which was what the market expected. But President Trump is pushing for lower rates while tariffs are threatening inflation, which has made the market worried about the tension between the two.
As a sign that tariff tension may ease, President Trump announced a trade deal with the U.K. today, which is really more of a framework with details to be worked out later. The deal reduces some import tariffs on pharmaceuticals and automobiles while keeping the 10% tariff on all imports in place.
The deal isn't exactly earth-shattering and leaves a lot of details to be negotiated, but the market is forward looking so investors are wondering what the impact will be if more "deals" are announced soon. The Fed may soon start worrying less about tariff-induced inflation and look at the weakening economy, leaving the central bank to cut rates.
Blockchain developments continue
Despite the speculative nature of day-to-day trading on the blockchain, there has been some positive news for these cryptocurrencies as it relates to utility. Ethereum's Pectra upgrade is intended to provide more scalability for the blockchain, which is needed given the slow speed and high cost for using Ethereum.
CRYPTO: DOGE
Key Data Points
Dogecoin got some positive news when DogeOS raised $6.9 million to build a Dogecoin app layer. Dogecoin is still a meme coin, but some developers want to give it more utility.
Bitcoin's role as the largest, most stable cryptocurrency remains despite its relatively few use cases. But that's why investors call it digital gold.
Where does crypto go from here?
The market's speculation has pushed crypto higher along with growth stocks, helped by a solid earnings season. But the tariffs announced in early April won't impact business until the second quarter, and empty shelves won't be seen at retailers for months.
This could be the kind of bounce that's unsustainable if the economy turns south, as companies and the government reduce staff. There were 105,441 layoffs in April, according to a report from Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, 63% higher than a year ago. About half of those cuts were from the government's DOGE initiative.
We have seen in previous recessions that there's a lag between an event and the economic impacts it causes. In March 2008, Bear Stearns collapsed, and the market wouldn't bottom for another year. There will be a multimonth lag between layoffs and tariffs and their ultimate economic impact.
I'm skeptical of this rally for that reason and think the market may already be getting out ahead of itself in 2025.
