Finance

In his first meeting as Chair, Kevin Warsh led the Federal Open Market Committee to hold the benchmark interest rate steady between 3.50% and 3.75%. Despite the pause, policymakers adopted a hawkish tone, removing prior language that suggested a bias toward future cuts and indicating that rates may need to remain elevated to combat persistent inflation.

Annual inflation accelerated to 4.2% in May, reaching its highest level in three years as energy costs surged due to ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Gasoline and fuel oil prices experienced significant jumps, contributing to over 60% of the monthly CPI gain and reinforcing the Fed's cautious stance on monetary easing.

The cryptocurrency market stabilized at the end of June with Bitcoin trading near $60,000 following a period of intense volatility and institutional outflows from spot ETFs. This cautious recovery comes as new European regulations cause major platforms like Binance to block new deposits, prompting significant asset withdrawals and a shift toward self-managed storage.