Jerome Powell Set To Chair Last Fed Meeting: What Does It Mean For Bitcoin?

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) tapped $77,000 early Wednesday as analysts debate how the change at the helm of the Federal Reserve will impact the apex crypto.

Powell Chairs His Last Meeting

In an Apr.29 podcast, Benjamin Cowen said Bitcoin has historically performed best under loose monetary conditions.

The upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting is notable as it is expected to be the final one led by Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair, marking what Cowen described as the “end of an era.”

Despite market expectations that new leadership could introduce rate cuts, Cowen argued this is unlikely in the near term.

He pointed to persistent inflation, driven in part by geopolitical tensions and…

Read more on Benzinga

Bitcoin Holds $77,000, Ethereum, XRP Rebound While Dogecoin Rallies On FOMC Day

Bitcoin trades above $77,000 on Wednesday morning, supported by optimism following remarks from the SEC chair at the Bitcoin 2026 event.

Bitcoin ETFs saw $89.7 million in net outflows on Tuesday, while Ethereum ETFs reported $21.8 million in net outflows.  

Meme coin market capitalization is down 2.8% to $37.8 billion over the past 24 hours.

Trader Commentary: 

Trader Michael van de Poppe said Bitcoin is showing strength ahead of key macro events such as the FOMC decision and GDP data release, which often trigger pre-event dips. He noted the formation of higher highs and higher lows on lower timeframes, supporting a bullish outlook with a potential target between $85,000 and $88,000 in…

Read more on Benzinga

Stock Market Today: Dow Jones, Nasdaq Futures Gain Ahead Of Powell’s Last Speech As Fed Chair— Robinhood,

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, following Tuesday’s lower close. Futures of the major benchmark indices were higher.

Investors will be closely watching the Federal Reserve’s decision to gauge how the central bank is navigating interest rates amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran war. Additionally, Jerome Powell’s press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET is widely considered to be his last as Chair of the Fed.

The CME Group’s FedWatch tool‘s projections show markets pricing a 100% likelihood of the Federal Reserve leaving the current interest rates unchanged in today’s meeting.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury bond yielded 4.36%, and the two-year bond yield was at 3.85%.

IndexPerformance (+/-)Dow… Read more on Benzinga

Bitcoin Will Reshape Traditional Finance, Leaders Say

A couple prominent Bitcoin adoption leaders gathered on the Nakamoto Stage at The Bitcoin 2026 Conference, making the case that an unusual industry dynamic — one where direct competitors openly collaborate — may be the defining feature of the current institutional push into the digital asset.

The panel featured David Bailey, CEO of Nakamoto Inc., Alexandre Laizet of Capital B, and Dylan LeClair of Metaplanet, moderated by George Mekhail of Bitcoin for Corporations.

Bailey started his talk to frame Bitcoin as something closer to a decentralized corporation, arguing that rising valuations at peer companies lift the broader ecosystem rather than cannibalize it. He pointed to…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

A First Of Its Kind Documentary Covering Bitcoin’s Four Year Cycle, David Bailey, And Nakamoto In Production

A new documentary is in production that traces the nuances of bitcoin’s four-year cycle and David Bailey — the founder of BTC Inc. and chairman and CEO of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA) — through what filmmaker, Parker Worthington, describes as one of the most pivotal chapters in BTC’s history.

“It’s been a long run,” Worthington said on the Bitcoin Magazine live desk at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference. 

The documentary is tentatively titled This Time Is Different and was produced in association with Michael Markle. The project began as a focused documentary about Bitcoin payments, with early footage shot in 2024 around open-source payments infrastructure. 

But the…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Strategy’s (MSTR) Michael Saylor Says STRC Is ‘Going Viral’ After $8.5 Billion Run‑Up

Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Strategy, took the Nakamoto Stage at Bitcoin 2026 on Tuesday to argue that a nine-month-old preferred stock instrument has become the fastest-growing credit product in the world — and that its expansion is only getting started.

The keynote, framed around what Saylor calls digital credit, was a structured pitch for STRC, Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, which trades on Nasdaq near its $100 par value and pays an 11.5% annualized monthly dividend. 

He opened with a premise that set the tone for everything that followed: “The world is built on capital. The world runs on credit.”

For…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Bitcoin 2027 Conference Returning To Nashville, Tennessee

The world’s premier Bitcoin conference is heading back to Music City. BTC Inc confirmed that Bitcoin 2027 will take place July 15-17, in Nashville, Tennessee, marking the event’s return to the city after two consecutive years in Las Vegas. The announcement came on the second day of Bitcoin 2026, which was held at The Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Las Vegas.

Bitcoin 2024 — the last time the conference was held in Nashville — became one of the most storied gatherings in the event’s history, drawing an estimated 35,000 attendees, 444 speakers across six stages, and generating over 1.4 million livestream views over three days. 

“Vegas we love you, we miss…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Czech Central Bank Chief Backs Bitcoin As 1% Investment

Czech National Bank Governor Aleš Michl used a Bitcoin industry stage in Las Vegas to defend a reserve strategy that mixes strict inflation control with measured exposure to digital assets.

 He described the bank’s move to add a small Bitcoin allocation as a way to raise expected returns without increasing overall portfolio risk.

Michl said that when he became governor in mid‑2022, inflation in the Czech Republic was near 20%. He told the audience that the central bank pledged to bring inflation back to 2% within two years and met that goal through discipline, not “magic.” 

He said money had been too cheap for too long, the currency had weakened, and there was too…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Lightspark Launches Grid Global Accounts, Targeting Fragmented Global Payment System

David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark, used a Tuesday morning session at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference to announce Grid Global Accounts, a product he described as a dollar account that works everywhere, backed by a new partnership with Visa that extends spending access across many countries worldwide.

Marcus opened by framing the problem at scale. Roughly 400 billion emails travel across the internet each day, and consumers rely on a handful of platforms like Gmail to manage that volume. The global payments system moves 10 billion transactions a day, yet lacks an equivalent universal layer, Marcus said.

Marcus said there is no form of payment that works everywhere without friction, and…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Banks Are Turning Into Casinos, Bitcoin Is Better

Bitcoin 2026 speaker Alex Leishman used his Nakamoto Stage talk, titled “We’re Not Fixing Money to Build More Casinos,” to deliver a sharp warning that modern finance is drifting toward a gambling model and away from basic banking. 

Leishman, CEO of River, said the American dream feels out of reach for many people as housing costs rise, student debt lingers, and wages lag, and argued that this pressure helps explain why prediction markets and betting features are spreading through mainstream financial apps. 

In his view, a system that once promised stable savings now pushes people toward risk if they want a shot at financial freedom.

Leishman opened by describing a…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine