As concerns about rate hikes in the market grew recently, the virtual asset market turned slightly higher after Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, signaled he would keep rates on hold for the time being.
At 8:20 a.m. on the 31st, on CoinMarketCap, a global virtual asset market tracker, Bitcoin was trading at $66,664, up 1.12% from 24 hours earlier. Ethereum was up 2.10% at $2,023, and Solana was up 1.26% at $82. Ripple, however, was down 0.31% at $1.32.
Powell said in a guest lecture at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., that day, "Monetary policy is in a good place to wait and see how things develop." He said it is still too early to judge how a U.S.-Iran war would affect the economy and inflation, and that the Fed can wait and watch.