Bitcoin, Ethereum Lift Defying Stock Market's Decline as Fed Chair Jerome Powell Praises Ongoing Efforts to Provide a Clear Regulatory Framework for the Industry

What Happened: Bitcoin reclaimed the $104,000 mark, helped by bullish commentary from Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Major cryptocurrencies rallied on Wednesday, diverging from the stock market's decline as the Federal Reserve paused its interest rate cutting streak.

What Happened: Bitcoin gained steam, reclaiming the $104,000 mark as commentary from Fed Chair Jerome Powell bodes well for cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum also registered gains, but awaited a strong upward breach from the $3,200 level.

The second-largest cryptocurrency has trailed Bitcoin thus far in 2025, with year-to-date losses of 5.80% as opposed to the apex cryptocurrency's 11% gains.

At the press conference, Powell praised the efforts being made to provide a clear regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency industry.

The rally resulted in $257.59 million in cryptocurrency liquidations in the last 24 hours, with the majority being downside bets.

Bitcoin's Open Interest rose by 2.58% in the last 24 hours, indicating an influx of fresh money into its futures market.

However, over 50% of Bitcoin traders took short positions on the asset, according to the Long/Short ratio, suggesting that the market could reverse.

The "Greed" sentiment softened from 72 to 76, according to the reading on the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.

Top Gainers (24-Hours)

The global cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $3.52 trillion, growing by 1.99% in the last 24 hours.

Stocks slid on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 136.83 points, or 0.31%, to close at 44,713.52. The S&P 500 slid 0.47%, ending at 6,039.31, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.51% to close at 19,632.32.

The slide came after the Fed kept interest rates unchanged, pausing its monetary easing cycle that began in September.

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Analyst Notes: Blockchain analytics firm Santiment weighed in on the cryptocurrency market's rebound and its divergence from stocks.

"They [cryptocurrencies and stocks] have been tightly correlated for much of the past 3 years now, but today is a good sign that cryptocurrencies aren’t entirely fluctuating as simply ‘high leveraged tech stocks’, as many skeptics have been claiming," the research firm said.

Cryptocurrency has not (yet) been phased by Jerome Powell and the Fed's decision to halt interest rate cuts for the time being. Interest rates have been a sensitive topic for investors and traders of all sectors, particularly after they were aggressively cut in 2020 (as a… pic.twitter.com/p49FjhLiKI

Influential cryptocurrency analyst and trader Ali Martinez sounded the alarm about the prospect of a major Ethereum downside.

"Ethereum MVRV has dropped below the 160-day MA once again. The last time this happened was on June 23, 2024, which led to a 40% price correction from $3,500 to $2,100," the analyst remarked.

MVRV, which stands for Market Value to Realized Value, is a ratio used to assess the value of a cryptocurrency by comparing its current market value to its realized value.

#Ethereum $ETH MVRV has dropped below the 160-day MA once again. The last time this happened was on June 23, 2024, which led to a 40% price correction from $3,500 to $2,100. pic.twitter.com/zbnqPqzr0D

Photo by Avi Rozen on Shutterstock

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