The price of the majority of major cryptocurrencies was observed to be green in trading Tuesday (22/3/2022) morning Indonesian time, amid the market reaction to comments from the chairman of the United States (US) central bank that is preparing to face high inflation.
Launching data from CoinMarketCap at 09:00 WIB, only Bitcoin and one digital coin (token) of the stablecoin type, the USD Coin, weakened slightly today. Bitcoin edged down 0.18% to a price level of US$ 41,159.74/coin or equivalent to Rp. 590,642,269/coin (assuming an exchange rate of Rp. 14,350/US$).
While the rest are observed to be strong. Ethereum rose 1.18% to US$ 2,897.17/coin or Rp 41/574390, XRP jumped 4.7% to US$ 0.8427/coin (Rp 12,093/coin), Terra rose 3.02% to US $94.26/koin (Rp 1,352,631/koin), and Cardano jumped 3.62% to US$ 0.9118/coin (Rp 13,084/coin).
Bitcoin tends to stay around the level of US $ 41,000 and other major cryptocurrencies tend to strengthen after the chairman of the United States (US) central bank said it was ready to aggressively raise interest rates to stem inflation that could potentially still rise.
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve (The Fed), Jerome Powell, told the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) annual economic policy conference in Washington, DC, that he pledged to take “necessary steps” to control prices. .
He also said a rate hike could go from a quarter percentage point or 25 basis point (bp) hike to a more aggressive hike of half a basis point if necessary.
Powell’s remarks come less than a week after the Fed raised interest rates for the first time since 2018.
The Fed’s tighter monetary policy could cause economic growth to slow again and this could be a negative catalyst for speculative assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies.
On the other hand, investors are also still monitoring the war between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that if discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin fail again, there is a potential for a third world war to break out.
Ukrainian and Russian officials have met several times for peace talks, but have failed to reach a peace agreement. Ukraine has rejected an ultimatum to hand over the city of Mariupol to Russian troops.
Returning to the crypto market, most alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) are again outperforming Bitcoin, which suggests that traders still tend to be comfortable with risk assets, even though their risk appetite is likely to be lower than last week.