Federal Reserve's Harker: May Temporarily Hold Rates Steady

The first Federal Reserve official to call for a rate hike since Walsh assumed office has emerged. Earlier today, Fed official Logan said the central bank should raise interest rates to tackle high inflation – a remark signaling she may be prepared to vote against keeping rates unchanged later this month. Logan added that June inflation data released Tuesday shows price growth is moderating, but not enough to convince her inflation has returned to the Fed’s 2% target trajectory.

Sources say JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley will provide $50 billion in acquisition financing and act as advisors for the PayPal (PYPL.O) takeover. Fifteen days prior, Stripe — the world’s largest private payments company — and U.S. private equity firm Advent International jointly proposed to acquire the long-standing online payments giant PayPal at $60.5 per share, valuing the company at over $530 billion total, a roughly 28% premium over PayPal’s Tuesday closing price, backed by approximately $50 billion in financing commitments from multiple banks. Under the deal terms, Stripe and Advent will each hold a 50% stake in PayPal.

JPMorgan analysts noted in a recent report that Strategy has recently increased its U.S. dollar reserves from $2.55 billion to $3 billion, enough to cover roughly 20 months of preferred stock dividend payments, an encouraging sign for Bitcoin’s outlook. If Strategy can rebuild its U.S. dollar reserves to a level covering two to three years of dividends, it will ease market concerns that the company may be forced to sell Bitcoin in the future to cover preferred stock dividend payments. Meanwhile, despite sharp recent volatility in spot Bitcoin ETF flows, both Bitcoin futures and perpetual contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) recorded net inflows this week—flows typically driven by institutional investors rather than retail, in contrast to the outflows seen in spot ETFs. Additionally, leveraged ETFs linked to Strategy have seen relatively stable, positive net flows over the past seven weeks, driven mainly by retail buying, which has supported Strategy’s common stock price and prevented it from falling below the net asset value of its Bitcoin holdings. Strategy President and CEO Phong Le stated earlier this week that the company’s balance sheet is very secure; it will only begin to worry about debt-related risks if Bitcoin falls to roughly the $8,000–$10,000 range, and plans to issue more shares after STRC preferred stock returns to its $100 par value to further accumulate Bitcoin and expand its U.S. dollar reserves. JPMorgan also reiterated that Strategy is not a major structural threat to Bitcoin; a larger risk lies in the promotion of blockchain technology through permissioned systems, which does not benefit public blockchains or their tokens.

According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index plunged 3.00% at opening and is currently trading at 64,828.46 points. South Korean stock markets are closed today for Constitution Day.

According to monitoring by OnchainLens, a trader has opened short positions on HYPE and BTC: holding 145 Bitcoin short positions valued at $9.31 million with an entry price of $64,657, and 15,000 HYPE short positions worth $938,000 at an entry price of $64.2.

South Korean stock markets are closed today for Constitution Day. The Korea Exchange (KRX), including the KOSPI and KOSDAQ indices, is fully closed for the entire day.