As the Federal Reserve prepares its first 2025 policy decision today at 20:00 CET on Jan 29, newly reinstated President Trump has publicly demanded immediate rate cuts through increased energy production and declining oil prices.
This follows the Fed's December move to lower rates to 4.25-4.50% with a projection of two cuts in 2025. While markets expect rates to stay unchanged until inflation reaches 2%, Trump's planned tariffs and public pressure on the Fed could influence future monetary policy.
Still, CME’s FedWatch tool has predicts a 99.5% chance that the Fed will keep its interest rates unchanged at 4.25% to 4.50%.
The ECB is set to cut rates by 25 basis points on Thursday Jan 30 as inflation continues to fall across the eurozone. However, core inflation remains high, particularly in the services sector, prompting the ECB to balance its monetary easing against lingering price pressures. This would mark the fifth consecutive rate reduction as the central bank responds to weakening economic conditions.
Last week, digital asset investment products saw inflows totalling $1.9bn, likely as a result of recent presidential executive orders that proposed the initiation of a strategic reserve asset in Bitcoin.
The stablecoin market cap is currently at $216.338 bn, with Jan 28 netting $430m of inflows. Still, the current 24h volume is 39.12% lower compared to a week prior.
French prosecutors have opened a new judicial investigation into Binance, examining potential crimes including drug trafficking, money laundering, and tax fraud following their initial 2023 probe - part of increased worldwide regulatory scrutiny that resulted in Binance's historic $4.3 billion settlement with the DOJ, imprisonment of founder Changpeng Zhao, and widespread enforcement actions against crypto platforms following FTX's collapse.
Bitwise has submitted documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday to launch a dogecoin (DOGE) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
World Liberty Financial has increased its investment in Ethereum, spending $10 million to acquire 3,247 ETH during a recent price drop. This latest purchase makes ETH the fund's largest holding, which it maintains both as liquid assets and for staking purposes, marking an aggressive expansion of the Trump-affiliated DeFi fund's crypto portfolio.
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission granted operational licenses to crypto exchanges PantherTrade and YAX, marking its first approvals of 2025. These two platforms join five other licensed exchanges since Hong Kong began its crypto regulatory framework in mid-2024, with all recipients required to register under the territory's anti-money laundering ordinance.
The Singapore-based crypto exchange Phemex suffered a massive security breach on Thursday when $85 million worth of crypto were stolen by hackers.
Poland is now the world's fifth-largest Bitcoin ATM market, having 219 machines nationwide, overtaking El Salvador after adding 10 new ATMs on Jan 27th. This follows a sustained expansion that began in October 2024, positioning Poland behind only the United States, Canada, Australia, and Spain in global Bitcoin ATM presence.
21Shares has launched CSOL, a physically-backed Solana staking ETP on SIX Swiss Exchange that offers investors exposure to Solana with a 0.35% management fee plus automatic staking rewards, making it their fourth "core" suite of crypto ETP products.
Czech National Bank Governor Ales Michl plans to propose holding up to 5% of the bank's €140 billion reserves in bitcoin during Thursday's board meeting, while also indicating a likely 25-basis-point interest rate cut next week.