So about two weeks ago I made a video titled the 2023 Bitcoin Bull Cycle just started. It was at that time Bitcoin's price was at 19 300 and today at the time of filming this video, we're seeing a 24 increase in just the past 19 days at a price of 23 800 for Bitcoin zooming out just a bit more. Since the beginning of this year, Bitcoin is now up 43 nft. sales have jumped 38 and the Crypto Fear and Greed index. well, it ain't red no more. We've seen it come back to the green, which is a color that I personally haven't seen in a long time and on top of that, we've even seen a mini short squeeze happen with a lot of the most popular crypto stocks. Over this past week, Coinbase spiked 24 on Thursday bringing its gains across the past five days to 54 and it's year-to-date rise above 140 Crypto Banker Silvergate jumped 29 on Thursday and is up 60 since the end of this week, and other stocks exposed to digital assets such as Bitcoin Miner Riot platforms or or even Microstrategy who is famous for buying a lot of that Bitcoin During the Bull Market also experienced some pretty solid room. So in that previous video, I covered more about why and how the Bull Cycle for this year would go underway. But in this episode, we're going to be covering the progression of what we've seen and we're going to talk more recently about why Bitcoin is still pumping and what is the major Catalyst and the factor for driving its growth with interest rates. Rising Huge shop Cuts still happening all across the tech industry. The question that comes up to me is shouldn't the markets instead be dumping? This is because historically we have seen higher interest rates meaning stocks and crypto go down, but this time it's a bit different. So let's get straight into it in this video. So to kick it off, while increases in interest rates are generally bad for the market and risk assets like stocks and Crypto, there have been a lot more major positives coming from Jerome Powell in that Fomc meeting that many investors are more riled up to take with the new stance that it looks like he's changing to so. Jerome Powell's speech was more bullish. The point that in hours following the Fomc meeting, the crypto market cap had actually increased by over 40 billion dollars Now, although the last interest rate hike was at about 50 basis points, this time was only 25.. the most obvious bullish indicator from this week's Fomc meeting is the fact that the Federal Fund rate increases are just not as high as we'd expected it to be since the middle of 2022. The Federal Reserve kept bumping up the interest rates by 75 basis points, which is already considered extremely aggressive. So people including myself were concerned that you know Powell could go full Valker mode and increase the Federal fund rate by a full percentage Point each meeting until interest rates had eventually reached the double digits. Now luckily for you and I and even investors, the last Fomc meeting of 2022 had showed that the Federal Reserve slowed down their rate hikes and only increased it by 50 basis points. And then in the first Fonc meeting for this New Year, the interest rate hike had decreased once again to just 25 basis points. So this here makes investors believe that the Federal Reserve has a much more optimist outlook for the future and might even decrease their interest rate goals for this year of 2023, which would be amazing for stocks in Crypto. Now, for the first time since inflation had reached that 40-year high that we've all gone through, Jerome Powell has now seemed a lot more confident and dovish in the way he spoke and answered questions from the Press. By the way, for anyone who doesn't know the financial term lingo, I feel like I've never explained it on this channel. Those who support High rate hikes are called Hawks so just think of like Hawks flying really high up in the air and those who support or favor low rate hikes are called doves. And you often see doves like lower to the ground, so lower rates dubs higher rate Hawks. So Jerome Powell this time around sounded a lot more dovish. Instead of telling people there's much more pain to come and you know, saying how bad the labor markets might get, it was more positive because we even saw him making statements such as it is gratifying to see the disinflationary process and to double up on that. He even said the recent developments are encouraging. So the main reason why this time around, even though interest rates have gone up and the markets decided to pump, was because it seems like things might be turning for a better scene. This is the start. This is the beginning for us to see much less quantitative tightening measures and it might seem like interest rates may turn around this year, which would mean it could put us back into the same scenario of what we've seen before in the bull market. We also have to take a look at the data and realize that the current inflation rate is sitting at 6.5 percent and is down significantly from the 9.1 percent high that we had in last June. Now this year is a major win for Market Bowls because many investors were projecting inflation to reach double-digit numbers like I said and that would have been crazy. So the fact that the Federal Reserve has now decided to tone down on their aggression it is a very good sign. Drone Palette also quoted during the Fonc press conference. Despite elevated inflation, longer term inflation expectations appear to remain well anchored, as reflected in a broad range of surveys of households, businesses, and forecasters, as well as measures from financial markets. So that means that things are going according to plan and that the Federal Reserve might actually know what they're doing, despite what many people say about them and their actions. So all that is really good news. But that's not even the best part, because one of the most significant takeaways from the entire conference was the fact that this past year there's been a lot of talk about how strong the U.S labor market is despite the rising inflation rate. While the most recent data had shown that the unemployment rate has now returned back to pre-pandemic levels at 3.5 percent, which is a historic low despite what we're hearing from Silicon Valley And yes, I do understand that a lot of tech companies are still continuing to lay off their employees. We have been consistently adding over 200 000 jobs per month, which is a sign of a healthy labor market Now the past few days too, I've actually been having to go on indeed, helping my family member find a new job and I was surprised by the amount of job listings that had said that they were urgently hiring now. So with all that said, the U.S labor market is rebounding. It looks like employers are looking for jobs, and as most of you guys know, the Ogs do, I do co-own a restaurant here in Rockville Ireland and we've been trying to find some new employees to work for us too. So it really depends on the way that you decide to look through the lens. You know there's one group of people who have college degrees that are all struggling to find jobs, but then at the same time they're more of the blue collared workers that it seems like jobs might be a bit more plentiful. Regardless, the stats and the data are showing us pretty good news, but that's not even the best part because Jerome Powell had to dress the fact that the monetary policy implemented by the Federal government is starting to work and now we are actually seeing results. Even more than that, the effects of those results aren't yet fully priced in Jerome Powell Had stated this, we've taken forceful action to tighten the stance of monetary policy and we've covered a lot of ground and the full effects of our rapid tightening so far are yet to be felt. So Jerome Pal is saying pretty much that the results are great, but we have not yet seen the full benefit of what's to come. That same here is definitely much more positive and it's relieving to hear because it gives us hope and future that there is a probability Market kids will do better. Markets will increase, especially with the fact that there is good response happening within our economy. From all the interest rate hikes that they've done just a year ago, interest rates were effectively at zero percent. They're still at 4.5 percent. We're not at double digits and it's going to take some time for inflation to really feel the effects of that change, but I'm confident that we are going to be in a better place at the end of this year than compared to where we are now. With even just a bit of a minor change in seeing Bitcoin pump as much as it did, and seeing some of these other stocks having a short squeeze, we can only assume that stocks and crypto and other assets may have hit that bottom. It may have been within that zone where Bitcoin was sitting at sixteen thousand dollars for a long time, and that might have been the last time that you would have been able to buy in at such a good price if you were following Along On this channel, we mentioned it time and time again just to stay the course to dollar Cost average to no matter what. Don't be freaked out and sell if you have no plan but to continue moving forward because it is likely that a lot of people over exaggerated. while everyone was selling off and the recession is here and people are losing their jobs. It's understandable. but realize that during times like this when everyone is fearful, it is so important for you to take action to do the opposite of what the entire pack is doing. And if everyone's selling, that's when you want to consider buying a bit more, adding in a bit more to that dollar cost average sum that you've set Now Ladies and gents, Although all of that news sounds pretty darn good, you have to realize that there is still things where we could take the highway off to the promised land of the great Green Market that we experienced just a year back and we couldn't merge off going to the back roads and end up somewhere that we didn't expect. So here's what you need to know for that. Jerome Pal made a statement here, which I believe is really good for us to focus on. While recent developments are encouraging, we'll need substantially more evidence to be confident that inflation is actually on a sustained downward path. So pretty much here. He's telling us that while things are looking better, we're not out of the neck of the woods just yet. Inflation itself is a very complex topic and there are going to be several dimensions and other factors continuing to affect it. While on the optimistic side that a decrease from nine percent to six percent is a pretty good drop, the Fed's inflation goal is still two percent, so we have a long way to go. now. The next Fomc meeting is on March 21st and before then, we're gonna have two more inflation readings, with the next one scheduled on February 14th. If inflation does happen to increase before then, there's a possibility that we might revert back to the 50 basis point hike I Think if that happens, we're going to see another dip in the market. but I think if we're able to stay the path of 25 basis point hikes, know that we do have inflation under control I Think we're going to be setting up the market for a bit of a rebound this year. Now this here is the most important factor that is affecting the market: I Don't think it's any type of like Bitcoin super cycle or the astrology of what the moon's doing or I don't know. Some people even have like crazy theories that like depending on certain celebrities birthdays, that's when the markets decide to do well. everyone's got their own thing. I Believe that the prediction of the market still has to do with how the Federal government decides to move forward with this year with inflation and in controlling our money supply. The reality is this: the market cap is still so large on this and we are still seeing just a fraction of the volume of what came in during the bull market. That means there's a lot of money still left over on the sideline. There's a lot of investors who have yet decided to pull the trigger and go back to where they were before. but I Do think if the markets pick up more, we could see extreme greed coming back as quick as it was before and a lot of people are going to be kicking themselves in the leg for the fact that they did not put any Market that they didn't do anything throughout this dip. And if you guys didn't know, you could also invest into crypto Tax-free right now. with our current legislation, you actually have a lot more benefits in doing that I Believe While we continue to age and progress throughout this life, taxes are not going to revert, we're not going to be seeing. Oh, you're going to get taxed less I Always think it's going to happen more. So make sure before you start investing the market that you take advantage of all the ways that you can invest tax-free One of those ways is to utilize a 401k a Roth IRA If you guys want to check out a service for that I have them linked Down Below in the description I'm using I Trust Capital to invest in my crypto first. So thank you all so much again for watching this video. Be sure to like this video down below. Comment down below the secret that's gonna be Dove if you made it till the end. Comment that down below. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter if you haven't done so already and I'll see y'all in the next video. Peace.