The US Federal Reserve’s 0.75 percentage point rate hike on Wednesday, though on expected lines, sent the crypto market to bearish territory. More importantly, the Fed’s commitment to rein in inflation even at the cost of slowing economic growth is worrying for riskier assets such as cryptos and equities. Among top cryptos by market cap, Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) led the way down with losses of 5.61% and 4.79%, respectively. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) lost 2.0%, falling short of $20,000 for the third consecutive session.
On a brighter note, Cardano (ADA) recovered some lost ground, ending the day down 0.68% at $0.439. However, ADA is dependent on the Vasil hard fork upgrade scheduled for 22 September to return to $0.50 level.
The Fed rate hike impacted the larger crypto market cap too. The total crypto market cap rose to a high of $927.1 billion before the announcement, but fell to $847.0 billion thereafter, ending the day at $862.4 billion.
The Fear and Greed Index
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index, a gauge of market sentiment, plunged to 22/100 from the previous session’s 23/100 level. While the drop might look minuscule, the index is still in the Extreme Fear zone, impacting investor confidence. For perspective, the index’s 34/100 reading from 13 September remains the highest for this month so far.
Top gainers and losers
Despite the bearish market, some coins made gains during the session. They are:
- AirSwap (AST): +16.99%
- Algorand (ALGO): +7.31%
- Chiliz (CHZ): +5.19%
- Uniswap (UNI): +4.08%
- IoTeX (IOTX): +3.72%
Conversely, the laggards are:
- QuarkChain (QKC): -14.56%
- EOS (EOS): -12.26%
- Curve DAO (CRV): -7.38%
- Kyber Network (KNC): -7.30%
- Terra 2.0 (LUNA2): -6.36%
The data source for the list of gainers and losers is CoinSwitch’s live crypto trends.
