Yesterday

Cryptocurrency markets skyrocketed into new territory Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that interest rate reductions could be imminent, pushing the Dow to its first 800-point plus gain this year. That ended the Dow’s longest streak without a new high since Dec. 4, 2024, according to Dow Jones Market Data, and signaled a major surge of optimism at the prospect of some economic policy relief.

Cryptos were major stars of that rally.

Ethereum (ETH) climbed over 15% to reach a new all-time high of $4,885, surpassing its previous record from November 2021, while Solana (SOL) swung between 8% and 12.5% in a 24-hour period, nudging just past the longtime “psychological” mark of $200 for a high of $201.94. Bitcoin (BTC) lovers also had their moment when it climbed 2.5% to $114,700 from $112,000, clawing back some of its losses from earlier this week.

As cryptocurrencies and stocks soared, the probability of a September Fed rate cut jumped to 90% following the speech, Reuters reports.

So why all the enthusiasm?

Simply put: When the market feels more secure, it invests in places considered riskier bets. Cryptocurrencies and other fintechs that are part of emerging technology sit squarely in those crosshairs.

This time it appears institutional investors led the charge, as they look for investments that can balance out a shaky U.S. dollar, general volatility, and risk.

“It’s almost a relief rally,” Carol Schleif, chief market strategist at BMO Private Wealth, told the Wall Street Journal. “Markets had anticipated more angst.”

The optimism from the market is a sign monetary easing is a reversal of that angst, and could be a change in fortune for the sector, which has whipsawed in recent trading, said Steve Lee, co-founder and managing partner at Neoclassic Capital and investor in BlockTower Capital.

“I see this as constructive in the short term, and it may help reverse this week’s sell-off. The key question is whether this momentum holds beyond the low-liquidity weekend. Since BTC and ETH price action is increasingly institutionally driven, spot ETF flows today and Monday will be a strong indicator of whether we are set for another leg higher,” Lee told CoinDesk.

What did Powell say?

As usual, Powell got straight to the point during his Wyoming speech on Friday.

“Downside risks to employment are rising,” Powell said at the Jackson Hole Symposium. “And if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.”

Powell also said recent policy moves from the Trump administration could affect inflation.

“With policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” he said, adding that tariffs could push inflation higher, at least temporarily. “A reasonable base case is that the effects will be relatively short lived, a one-time shift in the price level.”

You can read Powell’s entire speech here.

So how high did we go?

In this rally’s case, a rising tide did indeed lift all boats.

The broader S&P 500 also saw strong gains, rising 1.5%, its best performance since May, and equities were a bright spot on the NASDAQ Composite, which advanced 1.9%.

But perhaps most importantly, the index used by Wall Street to gauge how frightened investors might be, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), dipped more than 14% to its lowest level this year. The VIX is a favorite of trading pros and shows how turbulent the market feels.

Those gains across the board are an encouraging sign for both the buyside and the sellside, experts said.

“Correlations between cryptos and equities are high, and we see a market mood that will be highly sensitive to this week’s comments from the Jackson Hole meeting of monetary authorities, as well as from any reactions from fiscal authorities,” wrote Manuel Villegas, an analyst at Julius Baer, in a research note.

Which crypto continue to rise?

While nothing is a given once the opening bell rings, some analysts are already predicting which companies they think will continue to do well.

Analysts at Monarq Asset Management told CoinDesk that there’s still more room for Ethereum to grow, and that they expect to see the coin top $5,000 in near-term trade.

“We maintain our overall bullish stance. Market internals remain constructive, with few signs of overheating and, as you point out, a clear path to new all-time highs in both BTC and ETH,” Sam Gaer, chief investment officer of Monarq Asset Management’s Directional Fund, told CoinDesk.

“Our house view is that Powell’s dovish pivot has cleared the way for $5,000+ in the near term, also not the hardest call to make,” Gaer said. “Demand from treasury vehicles should increase into the fall as many of the deals announced this summer close or de-SPAC, in addition to ongoing institutional and retail inflows.”

Will Powell lower rates?

Friday’s rally was a perfect example of how sensitive global markets are to Fed policy, particularly after a long period of no rate cuts. Analysts, traders, and every other player in finance have been attempting to read Powell’s tea leaves for years with only moderate success, and even a major rally like Friday’s can’t completely fortify a very fragile market.

While no one can be entirely certain what Powell and the Fed will do next week, market watchers across the board are bullish on the move. “The Fed isn’t going to be the party-pooper,” Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, told the WSJ.

How much that rate cut might matter in the long run remains to be seen.

“We’re still doubtful that a September cut points to a prolonged interest rate cutting cycle. Risks to inflation are real and coming from many angles,” Lauren Goodwin, economist and chief market strategist at New York Life Investments, wrote in a Friday note.

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Last year, a former quality manager at Boeing warned that the factory that made the 787 Dreamliner—one of the company’s newer models of airplane—was plagued by shoddy work practices and poor oversight. John Barnett, who had worked for the airplane manufacturer for many years before becoming one of its most outspoken critics, said that Boeing was building the planes with ‘sub-standard’ parts and that its mandate of speed and efficiency was endangering lives. Barnett, who refused to fly on the Dreamliner, was also involved in a legal dispute with the company at the time that he died of an apparent suicide.

Yesterday, the plane that Barnett had warned regulators about crashed in Ahmedabad, India, killing all but one of the passengers. The worst aviation disaster in recent memory, the crash has spurred fresh scrutiny of its controversy-plagued manufacturer. While it will take months to understand what actually caused the crash, if the source of the disaster ends up being a vulnerability in the plane’s technical design, it won’t be particularly surprising. Barnett, whose death sparked conspiracy theories due to his involvement in the legal case against his former employer, was one of a long list of critics who have long expressed concern about the company’s manufacturing practices.

The 787 was launched in 2011, with one of the advertised benefits being that Boeing could manufacture the aircraft more cheaply than its previous models. However, from the get-go, the plane was ridiculed for having an overly complicated assembly process. One critic, writing in 2013, noted that the plane was put together through a convoluted network of contractors, some of whom offered limited transparency. Another aviation commentator said that it was as if Boeing had said “F*ck it. Let’s throw out everything we’ve ever known or used in airplane production and use this new, unproven method.” Critics noted that the company had outsourced too many parts to too many different contractors and that there was a risk that all of those components might not properly fit together when the craft was finally assembled.

Upon launch, the plane was almost immediately plagued by technical problems. In 2013, a series of battery-related fires in aircraft cabins caused the FAA to ground all of the 787s in the U.S. until the safety issues could be resolved. In 2015, the U.S. air safety authority discovered a software bug in the plane’s generator-control units that could hypothetically lead to a “loss of control” by the plane’s pilots. The plane also suffered from fuel leaks and other issues.

In 2019, the New York Times reported for the first time on the South Carolina plant where the Dreamliner was manufactured, noting that it was alleged to be “plagued by shoddy production and weak oversight that have threatened to compromise safety.” Barnett—who, by that time, had already left the company—was quoted heavily in the article, saying that he hadn’t “seen a plane [come] out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy.”

After Barnett’s death, another whistleblower who had formerly served as an engineer at Boeing, Sam Salehpour, claimed that deficiencies in the way the 787 was assembled could cause the aircraft to “break apart” in midair. Salehpour went on to testify about the issues in front of Congress, accusing his former company of being involved in a “criminal cover-up.” He also implied something could “happen” to him as a result of his outspoken criticism. Around the same time, other Boeing whistleblowers emerged from the woodwork to offer similar critiques of the airplane manufacturer, another of whom died. That spring, Boeing also admitted to falsifying documents about the 787, communicating to the FAA that it “may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage” and that other misconduct may have occurred at the company.

Boeing did not return a request for comment.