Bitcoin below $79,000, XRP leads losses as traders start betting on a Fed hike

BREAKING: $BTC falls below $79,000, with XRP leading losses as traders start betting on a Fed rate hike.

Bitcoin just cracked below seventy nine thousand dollars.

And XRP is leading the bleeding, falling harder than anything else on the board. This isn't a quiet drift lower either, it's a proper risk-off move, and the reason behind it is the part that should make you sit up.

Traders are starting to price in a Fed rate hike. Not a cut. A hike. For two years the entire crypto trade has leaned on the idea that cheap money was coming back. Now the market is whispering the opposite, and you can see what that does to anything priced on liquidity. The Federal Reserve hasn't said a word yet, but Jerome Powell doesn't need to. The futures market is doing the talking for him.

Here's the uncomfortable part. If the hike bets are right, seventy nine thousand isn't the floor, it's the trapdoor.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.