Bitcoin fell below $25,000 for the first time in three months - in anticipation of a Fed interest rate hike

The cost of Bitcoin dropped below $25,000 for the first time since March 17.

On June 15, in just 30 minutes, Bitcoin plummeted by 4% - from $25,867 to $24,819. At the time of publication, the flagship cryptocurrency is holding just above $24,985.

Over the past week, Bitcoin has held steady around $26,000, despite SEC lawsuits against major cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance (although customers withdrew over $780 million from the latter in a day).

The drop occurred three hours after the Federal Reserve announced a halt to interest rate hikes after nearly 15 months of increases in the fight against inflation.

According to market analyst Josh Gilbert from eToro, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell clearly indicated that the current pause is temporary and may lead to further problems for Bitcoin in the long term.

"The positive reaction of risky assets that we have seen this year is based on the expectation that inflation will fall and interest rates will peak, and then begin to decline‎," Gilbert said in a comment to Cointelegraph.

The second largest digital currency by market capitalization, Ethereum, also fell by more than 5% - from $1,727 to $1,631 in the same timeframe. Bearish sentiment also affected altcoins - many tokens marked as securities in SEC lawsuits dropped by 3%. In the last 24 hours, Cardano fell by 3.4%, while Polygon and Solana dropped by 3.3% and 2.8% respectively.

According to Cointelegraph analyst Marcel Pechman, current data on Bitcoin options suggest further declines, especially when considering the hostile regulatory attitude towards the crypto industry in the US combined with the likelihood of further rate hikes by the Fed in the coming months.