Bitcoin Price Slides to $22K as Powell Warns on Inflation
The Federal Reserve chairman said economic figures from January were stronger than expected.
Mar 7, 2023 at 3:20 p.m. UTC
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Inflationary pressures are running higher than expected, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in prepared remarks before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.
Bitcoin (BTC) fell about 1.6% to below $22,000 in the immediate aftermath of the release of the remarks. The price has bounced a bit since, recently trading at $22,100, while the S&P 500 was down 0.75%.
"The data from January on employment, consumer spending, manufacturing production and inflation have partly reversed the softening [inflation] trends," Powell said.
While allowing that unseasonably warm weather in January might be responsible for the higher-than-expected inflation figures, Powell said the "process" of returning inflation to the Fed's target of 2% "has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy."
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Stephen Alpher is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.