Bitcoin Traders Watch Fed Chair Warsh for Clues—And Get Nothing

In brief

• Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered his first Jackson Hole keynote on his 100th day in the job, formally declaring that forward guidance—verbal hints about future rate moves—has "overstayed its welcome."
• Warsh footnoted his own 2022 essay on cryptocurrency and the dollar while arguing that "money" deserves closer Fed attention.
• The Fed's preferred inflation gauge sits at 3.7% annually, nearly double its 2% target.

Kevin Warsh marked his 100th day as Federal Reserve chair on Friday by doing what he's made a habit of since taking the job: refusing to tell markets what comes next.

The crypto market reacted in kind by, well, not doing much of anything. Bitcoin is flat today after a record-breaking rally took it briefly above $80,000 this week, while the crypto market as a whole hovers around a $2.7 trillion market cap, down a slight 0.2% today.

In a keynote titled "In Our Time" at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole symposium, Warsh formally declared that forward guidance—the Fed's practice, dating to the 2008 financial crisis, of hinting where interest rates are headed—has, in his words, "overstayed its welcome." For two decades, Fed chairs have used this exact speech to signal their next move. Warsh used his to explain why he won't.