Crypto markets are experiencing a modest move to the upside following today’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, in which the U.S. central bank left interest rates steady at 4.25%-4.50%

Bitcoin (BTC) has risen 4.5% in the last 24 hours and is now trading for $85,500, its highest point since March 9.

The CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization except for stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins — is up 6%. Ether (ETH) and solana (SOL) have both surged by 7%, while Ripple’s XRP token has risen 10% off the back of CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s announcement that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to drop its case against the company.

Crypto stocks are also doing relatively well, especially bitcoin mining companies like Bitdeer (BTDR) and Core Scientific (CORZ), which are up 10% and 8% on the day, respectively. Bitdeer is likely buoyed from the technological progress it recently made in its ASIC manufacturing process, as well as from the news that stablecoin giant Tether was increasing its stake in the company to 21%.

Core Scientific, meanwhile, is potentially reaping the benefits of AI firm CoreWeave (Core Scientific’s main customer) filing for an initial public offering earlier in the month. Even so, both companies are down more than 61% and 53% since January and November respectively.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that tariff-related inflation was likely to be transitory and that recession risks remained low. And despite the market reacting positively to the meeting — Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow Jones all gained 1% or more — market commentators weren’t necessarily convinced.

“The word — ‘transitory’ — is back at the Federal Reserve as Chair Powell characterizes the price effects of tariffs as a one-off,” economist Mohamed A. El-Erian posted on X. “I would have thought that, particularly after the big policy mistake of earlier this decade and given all the current uncertainties, some Fed officials would show greater humility. It’s simply too early to say with any regress of confidence that the inflationary effects will be transitory.”

Gold continued to rise after surpassing the $3,000 mark on Tuesday and today hit a new record above $3,050. Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, said that the U.S. central bank was signaling that any additional rate cuts would likely happen at the cost of battering stocks. “The Fed is no longer comfortable gliding to neutral as we get closer to their inflation target. I think you can argue that the soft landing is over,” she posted.

As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve left its benchmark fed funds rate range steady at 4.25%-4.50% on Wednesday, the second consecutive pause since three straight rate cuts to end 2024.

The Fed’s quarterly economic projections, though, showed a sharp decline in expectations for economic growth, with the GDP increase in 2025 now seen at just 1.7% versus 2.1% at the December forecast. The growth outlooks for 2026 and 2027 were trimmed as well.

«Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased,» the Fed said in an accompanying statement, which is likely a reference to the tumult surrounding the tariff regime being threatened by President Trump.

Alongside slowing growth, core PCE inflation is now seen at 2.8% this year versus the previous 2.5% projection. The core inflation outlooks for 2026 and 2027 were left at 2.2% and 2.0%, respectively.

The «dot plot» — showing FOMC members’ outlooks for where interest rates might be headed — still sees the fed funds rate ending this year at 3.9%, the same as December’s forecast. The ending fed funds rates for 2026 and 2027 continue to be projected at 3.4% and 3.1%, respectively.

The Fed also said it would begin to slow the pace of securities runoff from its balance sheet — so-called quantitative tightening — beginning on April 1. The decline in Treasury paper then will be trimmed to just $5 billion from $25 billion previously.

Bitcoin (BTC) was volatile in the minutes immediately following the release, but headed lower at press time to $83,500 against just above $84,000 prior to the news.

U.S. stocks continue to hold solid gains and the 10-year Treasury yield has dipped two basis points to 4.28%. Gold, the star of late among asset classes, remains near a record high at $3,048 per ounce.

Risk assets have been beaten down over the past few weeks as mounting concerns over President Trump’s tariff threats and its perceived impact on inflation and economic growth weighed on investor sentiment. The Fed turning hawkish at the December and January meetings also quashed hopes of looser financial conditions for the near-term, posing headwinds for cryptocurrencies and stocks.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time (18:30 UTC) with traders monitoring the press conference for further clues of policymakers’ outlook on monetary policy.

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk’s Ethereum Reporter.

In this issue:

Hello, Hoodi: Ethereum Welcomes a New Testnet

Microsoft Raises Alarm of Malware Targeting Coinbase, MetaMask Wallets

Halliday Raises $20M for AI Protocol to Eliminate Writing Smart Contracts for DeFi

Sam Altman’s World Network and Razer Want to Defeat Gaming’s Bot Problem

This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Network news

HELLO, HOODI: ETHEREUM WELCOMES A NEW TESTNET: Ethereum developers launched a new test network, Hoodi, this week that will be used to carry out the blockchain’s upcoming “Pectra” upgrade. Pectra will go live on Hoodi on March 26, and if all goes well, the long-awaited upgrade will proceed to Ethereum’s mainnet roughly 30 days later, according to the network’s core developers. Hoodi was created following faulty Pectra tests on Ethereum’s other testnets, Holesky and Sepolia, which failed to finalize properly due to problems with how they were configured. Test networks like Holesky, Sepolia, and Hoodi aim to mimic the main Ethereum network — allowing developers the opportunity to test out code changes or major upgrades like Pectra in a low-stakes environment before deploying them to the mainnet. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

MICROSOFT RAISES ALARM OF MALWARE TARGETING COINBASE, METAMASK WALLETS: Tech giant Microsoft shared a new report warning of malware that targets 20 of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets used with the Google Chrome extension. Microsoft’s Incident Response researchers raised alarms of a new remote access trojan (RAT), dubbed StilachiRAT, which could deploy “sophisticated techniques to evade detection, persist in the target environment, and exfiltrate sensitive data,” the team shared in a blog post. The malware was discovered in November 2024, and it could steal users’ wallet information, and any credentials, including usernames and passwords, stored in their Google Chrome browser. StilachiRAT targets 20 crypto wallets including some of the most widely-used ones like MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Phantom, OKX Wallet, and BNB Chain Wallet. While the malware has not been distributed widely, Microsoft did share that it has not been able to identify what entity is behind the threat and laid out some mitigation guidelines for current targets including installing antivirus software. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

HALLIDAY RAISES $20M FOR AI PROTOCOL TO ELIMINATE WRITING SMART CONTRACTS FOR DEFI: Artificial intelligence (AI)-focused blockchain protocol Halliday said it raised $20 million to help fund development of its Agentic Workflow Protocol (AWP), which aims to speed development of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and avoid the need for programmers to write smart contracts. The Series A funding round was led by venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) crypto arm. «Our mission is to pioneer the software era of blockchain, enabling developers to build applications in hours, not years,» Halliday said in an emailed announcement. «With Halliday, you can never write a smart contract again.»— Jamie Crawley + AI Boost Read more.

SAM ALTMAN’S WORLD NETWORK AND RAZER WANT TO DEFEAT GAMING’S BOT PROBLEM: Sam Altman’s blockchain project, World Network, is teaming up with gaming hardware firm Razer on a suite of features designed to weed out bots from video games. “Razer ID verified by World ID” is a single sign-on mechanism that will verify real human gamers from bots. It’s built atop Razer ID, Razer’s existing login service, and will help guarantee there’s «a real person behind every Razer ID account,” according to a statement shared by Razer and World. The collaboration between the two firms comes as artificial intelligence (AI) tools are seeping into every corner of online life — including inside of video games, which have been plagued by non-human AI «bots» since long before the rise of Altman’s ChatGPT. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

In Other News

EOS Network, known for its scalable blockchain infrastructure, is rebranding to Vaulta as it pivots toward Web3 banking. The transition comes with a token swap that is provisionally scheduled for the end of May. It also comes with the launch of the Vaulta Banking Advisory Council, a group of financial and blockchain industry experts focused on bridging the gap between traditional banking and decentralized systems. Members include executives from Systemic Trust, Tetra, and ATB Financial, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk. — Francisco Rodrigues reports.

Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium is set to start its own token issuance platform in the coming weeks to drive more revenue to the already-popular trading service. Raydium’s LaunchLab will initially resemble the hit token issuance platform Pump.Fun, Blockworks first reported. Though developers say it will have several added features that make it more appealing for token launches. — Shaurya Malwa reports.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is set to drop its appeal against Ripple, ending a four-year legal battle, according to the company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The XRP token, which is closely associated with Ripple, jumped 10% on Wednesday during U.S. morning hours after Garlinghouse posted about the news on X. — Krisztian Sandor and Helene Braun report.

Calendar

March 18-20: Digital Asset Summit, New York

April 8-10: Paris Blockchain Week

April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai

May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto

May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London

May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas

June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes

Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore