BTC is currently trading around $38,300 and ETH around $2,650. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are TFUEL, WAVES, and LRC. The global crypto market cap is $1.82T, up 5.6% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$202b and BTC dominance is around 42%.
Crypto assets are up ahead of the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting, which concludes today with the release of the FOMC statement at 2:00pm and a press conference starting at 2:30pm EST. Investors are hoping to learn more about the Fed’s plan for raising interest rates and how and when it will wind down its ~$9T balance sheet. Expectations are for four rate hikes this year, with the first occurring at the Fed’s March meeting. A faster pace of tightening compared to expectations could dampen risk asset prices further, though the opposite also holds true.
Other notable headlines from today include: The IMF has urged El Salvador to remove bitcoin’s legal tender status; Kazakhstan has banned crypto mining until February; YouTube’s CEO hints that it could add NFTs to the platform; Stablecoin project Diem is reportedly attempting to sell assets to return capital to investors; the creators of Etherscan have launched a new instant messaging service called Blockscan Chat; OpenSea is adding Solana NFTs and Phantom Wallet support; crypto exchange FTX has closed a $400m funding round at an $8b valuation; and, money laundering via crypto grew 30% in 2021, per Chainalysis.
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