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Bitcoin slipped back below $26k as the crypto market mirrored stocks in reaction to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw slight losses on Powell’s remarks that the Fed was “prepared” to hike interest rates further in its bid to bring inflation to 2%. Meanwhile, BTC price fell to $25,819 across major crypto exchanges before recovering some of the losses. The flagship cryptocurrency was trading near $25,910 at the time of writing.

Fed sees further rate hikes

Powell, in his remarks on Friday, reiterated the central bank’s previous commentary that they were prepared to do their job to bring inflation down. That includes taking further rate hikes. Powell began his speech by commenting on what the Fed intends to do – battle inflation.

“At last year’s Jackson Hole symposium, I delivered a brief, direct message. My remarks this year will be a bit longer, but the message is the same: It is the Fed’s job to bring inflation down to our 2 percent goal, and we will do so.”

He added:

“Although inflation has moved down from its peak—a welcome development—it remains too high. We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective.”

Stocks fell sharply after Powell’s Jackson Hole speech last year, with the Fed noting at the time that the central bank was focused on raising rates as long as inflation remained elevated. The subsequent rate hikes have brought the US’ rates to the highest level since 2001, jumping by 300 basis points over the past year.

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