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Crypto Bulls Get Hit With $200M in Liquidations as Powell Rattles Market With Fed Warning
Altcoins like SOL, AVAX, HYPE were down 4%-5% before paring losses, while BONK and PENGU plunged 10% then bounced back.
Jul 30, 2025, 9:39 p.m.
What to know:
- Crypto markets saw wild swings as the Fed left interest rates steady, but Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish comments triggered a selloff.
- Some $200M in leveraged positions was liquidated within an hour following the interest rate decision, CoinGlass data shows.
- Analyst suggests that a potential Fed pivot to lower rates could drive BTC to $150,000 by year-end.
Crypto markets saw a rise in volatility on Wednesday as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish remarks rattled leveraged traders.
Liquidations spiked to over $200 million in an hour across all digital assets as bitcoin dipped below $116,000 while Powell spoke, CoinGlass data shows.
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The central bank left interest rates unchanged, with Powell insisting on potential inflationary pressures from tariffs, while two officials dissented in favor of cutting.
Read more: Bitcoin Tumbles Below $116K as Jerome Powell Delivers Hawkish Remarks
Later in the session, BTC bounced back above $117,000, still 0.8% down through the day and trading at the lower end of its three-week tight range. Ether slid as much as 3%, then recovered to $3,750, modestly lower (-0.6%) over the past 24 hours.
Altcoins posted steeper declines first, but quickly rebounded. Solana’s SOL , Avalanche’s AVAX (AVAX) and Hyperliquid’s HYPE tokens were down 4%-5% before paring losses, while BONK and PENGU plunged 10% each before bouncing back.
A check on the traditional market saw Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) posting strong quarterly earnings, lifting the stocks 10% and 6% higher, respectively, after regular trading hours.
"The market is increasingly starting to think the Fed may be behind the curve," Matt Mena, analyst at digital asset issuer 21Shares, said in a market note.
"Last week’s PCE print marked the second soft reading in a row, and consumer spending is weakening," he wrote. "With unemployment edging higher and real yields still restrictive, maintaining such tight policy risks overtightening into a broader slowdown."
The current setup is reminiscent of the last quarter of 2023, Mena said, with "softening inflation, rising political volatility, and a Fed constrained by lagging indicators."
He said "the stage is set" for the Fed to pivot to lower rates, which could drive BTC to $150,000 by year-end.
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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What to know:
- Bitcoin remains stable above $91,000 as the Federal Reserve cuts rates by 25 basis points.
- Market attention shifts to Japan, where a rate hike is expected at the upcoming Bank of Japan meeting.
- Gold prices rise following the Fed's rate cut, while silver hits a record due to strong demand and tight supply.
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