Bitcoin

In this week’s episode of Market Talks, we welcome Yashu Gola, a Mumbai-based financial analyst and technology journalist at Cointelegraph with a strong focus on Bitcoin (BTC), smart contracts, exchange assets, nonfungible tokens, commodities and global stocks. Gola has been covering the cryptocurrency industry since 2014 and does not expect to stop anytime soon.

First things first, the United States Federal Reserve has just announced a 75-basis-point increase in interest rates, which resulted in the markets taking a tumble. Why did this happen, what difference does it make to you, and why should you be concerned? We asked Gola to break it down for us.

Is Fed Chair Jerome Powell just prolonging the economic pain by slowly increasing interest rates, or should he just rip the band-aid off and increase the rate to the year-end target of 4.4%? What impact would that have on the market, and how will the number one cryptocurrency, BTC, react to it? What is the Fed’s actual plan to fight off inflation, and is it really working?

Is there more pain in store for Bitcoin? With the U.S. dollar on the rise, it seems that more and more people are running toward cash and cash-based instruments compared to riskier assets. If the Fed decides to raise interest rates by another 75 basis points, could Bitcoin drop lower than its current technical support range of $18,000–$20,000?

We also ask Gola if he’s keeping an eye on any significant Bitcoin price levels, and what they might be, considering all the macro factors at play. Will Bitcoin ever decouple from the traditional stock market? What would it take for that to happen? Gola enlightens us with his thoughts on the topic.

Tune in to have your voice heard. We’ll be taking your questions and comments throughout the show, so be sure to have them ready to go.

Market Talks with Coffee N Crypto’s Tim Warren streams live every Thursday at 12:00 pm ET (4:00 pm UTC). Each week, we feature interviews with some of the most influential and inspiring people from the crypto and blockchain industry. So, be sure to head on over to Cointelegraph’s YouTube page and smash those Like and Subscribe buttons for all our future videos and updates.