Mid-week whipsaw

Bitcoin began the wee hours of Wednesday morning clinging to $61,000 but ended the day surging above $68,000 after investors pounced on dovish remarks made by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Despite sticky inflation in January and February, the Fed came out and finally said what Wall Street wanted to hear – that the central bank expected to cut interest rates three times before year's end.

But, after several hours of risk-on jubilation, the biggest crypto has retraced somewhat overnight. Volatility isn't expected to dissipate.

As of 7 a.m. (EST), BTC was about $67,000 on a 24-hour gain of 6.3%.

Crypto generally has roared back into the green. Ethereum shot from roughly $3,100 to almost $3,600. Dogecoin rose 14% in 24 hours, notching the best performance among Big Ten coins over the past day. DOGE leaped on news that futures tied to it are set to make their trading debut on Coinbase in early April. 

Ethereum rivals Solana, Cardano and Avalanche are super green, slightly green and barely green respectively. One memecoin, FLOKI, got gashed during the recent downtown, but the 57th-largest digital asset is back to cruising along (+30%).

The CoinDesk 20 Index gained 8% overnight. CoinGecko's measure of crypto's total market capitalization shows that monumental figure has reached nearly $2.7 trillion on a gain of 7% in the past day.

"The inherent volatility of crypto markets was on full display," CoinDesk said of Bitcoin and Ethereum tumbling, stabilizing, bouncing and retreating.

BTC at one point earlier today traded as much as 15% above its Wednesday low.

Gazing back on the past two weeks, the largest crypto is +0.1%, or essentially unchanged since March 7.

ETH is down 6.6% in the same fortnightly span.

Solana has been a fountain of funny tokens. As in, you know, joke coins.

But look at Dogecoin's journey. DOGE is set to transcend the ha-ha label when it gets hooked up to a futures contract on a major exchange. It's a watershed moment for memecoins and possibly a harbinger of such coins maybe one day getting their own ETFs.

Solana-bred dog-themed coin, BONK, remains +85% over the past month. WIF, another canine meme, is +534% during that span.

Dumping these days, however, are some coins connected with a curious sub-sector referred to as political finance ("PoliFi").

Meme coins like TREMP and BODEN have been minted on Solana. Ethereum gave birth to MAGA (the asset).

With the November 2024 U.S. Presidential election campaign in full swing, TREMP was minted late last month. It initially traded at a few fractions of a penny. Based on a visual steeped in intentionally crude animation, TREMP has since shot up as high as 63 cents and currently maintains a market capitalization north of $20 million. Nearly 20,000 individuals hold the tokens, CoinDesk said.

“I think that having a crypto election at the same time as a real-life election is something that’s never really been done before in the crypto space,” said TREMP's creator, "B," a UK-based tech marketer.

She's a Trump supporter who believes most crypto communities are leaning toward the Republican candidate, and away from the Democrat’s proposed crypto taxation policies.

“We want to rally all the communities behind us and just make funny memes and videos,” she told CoinDesk of what could be shaping up as a kind of valuation battle disguised as a proxy election where crypto enthusiasts express themselves on the blockchain.