Bitcoin stalls after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s inflation comments

Bitcoin gave back a chunk of its weekly gains after newly appointed Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole keynote to remind markets that inflation is still very much the Fed’s problem to solve. BTC slid below $80,000 intraday before stabilizing in the $79,000 to $79,500 range, a move that triggered nearly $488 million in crypto liquidations. What Warsh actually said Speaking at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium on August 28, Warsh zeroed in on inflation numbers that remain stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% target. The Fed’s preferred measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures gauge, stood at 3.7% year-over-year. Over the previous six months, the annualized reading was even hotter at 4.1%. “We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do.” Treasury yields climbed in the aftermath, and the probability of a September rate hike jumped from roughly 35% to somewhere between 50% and 60%. The shift in expectations happened fast enough to catch leveraged crypto traders off guard, hence the nearly half-billion dollars in liquidations. Why Bitcoin reacted the way it did B...