The bitcoin (BTC) price crashed hard last night, pulling altcoins such as XRP, dogecoin (DOGE) and cardano (ADA) mercilessly with it. The carnage began after Jerome Powell, the chairman of the U.S. central bank, ducked behind the pulpit. He sparked new concerns among investors, and the crypto market is suffering badly from that right now.

BTC rate dives below $100,000

Yesterday, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making body of the Federal Reserve (U.S. central bank) met again to reach a new interest rate decision. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the bitcoin price already made a sharp fall, but this was nothing compared to what we saw last night.

Bitcoin largely hovered between $104,000 and $105,000 during the day yesterday. When at 8 p.m. the new 0.25% interest rate cut was announced – entirely as expected – bitcoin made a small drop to $104,600 to $103,600.

#Bitcoin https://t.co/53wcwaUoL6 pic.twitter.com/6P6iZwemZX

— Nebraskangooner (@Nebraskangooner) December 19, 2024

Lower interest rates are good news for bitcoin and crypto in general. It makes money cheaper and thus creates more liquidity in the financial markets. Still, so bitcoin went down, but with Powell’s press conference, things really took off.

Although the Fed boss expressed confidence that a recession has been avoided, he made his concerns about inflation clear. Inflation was disappointing in September and October, and more progress needs to be made on this front. The bank now anticipates only two 0.25% interest rate cuts for next year, down from four before.

As a result, bitcoin saw its value rapidly evaporate. At 9:45 p.m., the price was only hundreds of dollars above $100,000. And last night, bitcoin even briefly went on sale for $99,000. At that time, the price was more than 5% lower that on when the rate cut was announced.

Meanwhile, bitcoin is back above $101,000, but fear is well in the market. $100,000 is an important psychological level to stay above anyway.

At the time of writing, the BTC price on crypto exchange OKX is equivalent to $101,266 dollars. On Dutch crypto exchange Bitvavo, this puts the BTC price in euros at 97,612. Compared to 24 hours ago, BTC is down 2.01%.

Pain in the crypto market: XRP, dogecoin & cardano crashing

The crypto market is badly battered. With few exceptions, every altcoin has made significant declines. Even among the big boys, losses are already running very high.

For example, ethereum (ETH) is down 3.50% from 24 hours ago, at a price of $3,683. Furthermore, ripple (XRP) is down 5.23%, dogecoin (DOGE) is down 4.69% and cardano (ADA) is down 3.61%.

Memecoins received the hardest hits within the top 100. bonk (BONK), pepe (PEPE), dogwifhat (WIF) all lost around 10%. And floki is the biggest decliner with a loss of 12.68%,

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