Bitcoin rallied as Fed delivered second straight 75-point hike

The Federal Reserve raised its target range for the federal funds rate by 75 basis points on July 27, 2022, bringing it to 2.25%–2.50%. It was the second consecutive increase of that size. Bitcoin and ether rallied as the decision and Chair Jerome Powell’s subsequent press conference moved through markets.

CoinDesk’s approximately 4 p.m. New York readings placed its Bitcoin Price Index at $22,748, up 8.9%, and its Ether Price Index at $1,601, up 16.8%. Those measurements captured a broad risk-asset advance rather than proving that monetary policy alone caused either move. The S&P 500 closed 2.6% higher, and Reuters recorded falling short-term Treasury yields and a weaker dollar during the reaction.

An aggressive increase that markets expected

The Federal Open Market Committee unanimously approved the increase and said further increases would be appropriate. It also continued reducing its holdings of Treasury securities, agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities. The implementation note made the new target effective July 28, 2022 and raised the interest rate paid on reserve balances to 2.4%.

The decision followed a June consumer-price reading of 9.1% over 12 months, a figure Powell cited during the July 27 press conference. He described the increase as the second 75-basis-point move in as many meetings and said another unusually large increase could be appropriate, depending on incoming data.

That distinction mattered for the market reaction. A 75-basis-point increase was severe by the standards of the preceding decades, but it was also broadly anticipated. The immediate question was therefore less about the announced number than about how officials described the next stage of tightening.

Powell said policy decisions would be made meeting by meeting and that slowing the pace of increases could eventually become appropriate while officials assessed their cumulative effects. Markets could interpret that conditional language as reducing the probability of an uninterrupted sequence of equally large moves. It was not a commitment to pause or reverse policy.

Why crypto traded as a macro-sensitive market

The July 27 response underscored how closely digital assets were trading with other risk markets in 2022. Higher policy rates increase the return available from cash and short-duration government instruments while raising financing costs and lowering the present value investors assign to speculative assets. Those channels can affect bitcoin even though its issuance rules are independent of central-bank policy.

CoinDesk reported that bitcoin initially gained about 2% during the morning and rose more sharply after the Fed announcement. Its later index snapshot showed the 8.9% daily advance. Ether’s larger 16.8% move also had a protocol-specific backdrop: Ethereum developers had completed a mainnet shadow fork while preparing for the network’s planned proof-of-stake transition.

The mixed drivers make causal certainty inappropriate. The Fed decision, Powell’s remarks, short positioning, broader equity strength and Ethereum-specific expectations all overlapped. A single session cannot separate their individual contributions.

What the numbers do and do not establish

The $22,748 bitcoin and $1,601 ether figures were CoinDesk index readings taken at approximately 4 p.m. New York time, not official closing-auction prices. Crypto trades continuously, so daily percentage changes depend on the index methodology, venue set and cutoff. Prices on an individual exchange could differ.

The verified conclusion is consequently narrow: the Fed enacted its second consecutive 75-basis-point increase on July 27, 2022, while major crypto assets and U.S. equities advanced during the same session. The rally showed that an expected tightening decision could coexist with rising risk prices. It did not establish that restrictive monetary policy had ended, that inflation was controlled or that the 2022 crypto-market contraction had reversed.