Bitcoin Falls Below $77,000 After Hawkish Fed Speech

Bitcoin's price fell sharply below $77,000 on Friday, August 28, 2026, after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a hawkish speech at the annual Jackson Hole symposium, reviving concerns about potential interest rate increases. The cryptocurrency had recently rallied above $81,000 but reversed course within an hour of the speech's conclusion, triggering a broader sell-off across the digital asset market.

The decline erased over $80 billion from the total cryptocurrency market capitalization, which fell to approximately $2.72 trillion. Bitcoin's market cap dropped to around $1.555 trillion. The price dipped to a session low of $76,877 before recovering slightly to trade above $77,000, but remained down more than 4% over the previous 24 hours. Most major alternative cryptocurrencies followed suit, with Ethereum falling nearly 3% and XRP dropping below $1.40.

Warsh's speech significantly shifted market expectations for monetary policy. Traders rapidly repriced the probability of a September interest rate hike to about 60%, up from roughly 35% before he spoke. This repricing was driven by Warsh's emphasis that inflation remains too high, with the Federal Reserve's preferred...