Bitcoin Slides as the Fed Holds Rates but Turns Hawkish in Kevin Warsh's First Meeting as Chair - Unchained

Major cryptocurrencies edged lower on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady but released hawkish economic projections in Kevin Warsh‘s first meeting as chair.

Bitcoin traded around $64,150, down roughly 2.2% over the past 24 hours, while ether fell 3.6% and XRP and Solana each slipped around 3%, according to The Block’s price data. The GMCI 30 index of large-cap tokens fell about 2.6%, extending its year-to-date drop to nearly 36%. Traditional haven assets weakened too, with gold off 2.2% and silver down 4%. “The picture is one of a crypto market absorbing a hawkish macro backdrop while rotation and genuine demand continue to surface in the strongest names,” said Matt Mena, senior crypto research strategist at 21Shares.

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The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 to keep its target rate at 3.5% to 3.75%, a widely expected and largely priced-in decision. The weight came from the projections: policymakers raised their inflation forecasts and signaled a slower path toward lower rates than they had in March, suggesting continued concern about inflation even as geopolitical tensions and energy prices ease. The meeting also offered the first look at how Warsh intends to communicate policy. His statement was substantially shorter than those issued under Jerome Powell and omitted the forward-guidance language Powell relied on, an approach Warsh framed as presenting “the facts” rather than steering market expectations.

Beneath the macro reaction, one structural signal points the other way, the K33 report notes. In its Wednesday report, research and brokerage firm said a record 79% of bitcoin’s circulating supply is now held by long-term holders, an all-time high. This record shows continued accumulation, the firm’s head of research, Vetle Lunde, wrote.

Reactivation of coins aged two years or more has been exceptionally low in 2026, with only 218,421 BTC reactivated by June 6, the lowest for that date since 2012 and a fraction of the 1.18 million reactivated by the same point in 2024. Lunde said the pattern of long-term holders absorbing supply has historically appeared as bitcoin approaches a cycle bottom, though he cautioned a final leg lower often comes first, and other analysts at Wintermute and Glassnode argue flows still fall short of confirming a reversal.

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