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The price of bitcoin slipped by around 1% over the past 24 hours, trading near the $88,000 (£63,690) mark, as markets digested the US Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady at Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
Read more: London rises as traders digest mixed US earnings and Fed rate hold
The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation (BTC-USD) has been trending lower since hitting a local peak of roughly $97,000 on 15 January, with recent weakness coming amid a broader rotation by investors into traditional safe-haven assets.
Read more: Crypto live prices
Gold (GC=F) climbed to a fresh all-time high on Thursday, trading just shy of $5,600 an ounce, while silver (SI=F) pushed toward $120, as investors sought shelter in precious metals amid renewed geopolitical and economic uncertainty. The shift comes alongside a weakening US dollar, which is down 2.13% year to date, reinforcing demand for alternative stores of value.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalisation now stands at $3.07tn, down 1.1% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
Mamadou Kwidjim Toure, founder of fintech platform Ubuntu Tribe, told Yahoo Finance that investors are increasingly reassessing bitcoin’s (BTC-USD) role in portfolios as macro conditions evolve.
“As the financial landscape evolves, investors are increasingly pivoting from bitcoin (BTC-USD) to gold (GC=F), and for good reason,” Toure said.
“Gold has demonstrated exceptional resilience and consistent growth, especially in a challenging market environment. While bitcoin struggled to fulfill its growth promises last year, gold achieved a remarkable 72% gain in 2025, surpassing the $5,000 per ounce milestone.”
Read more: Gold price pushes over $5,500 amid weak dollar
Toure said the shift reflects deeper structural trends rather than short-term market reactions, pointing to sustained central bank demand for physical gold (GC=F).
“Central banks have systematically accumulated over 1,000 tons of gold annually in recent years,” he said. “Gold’s volatility is three to three-and-a-half times lower than bitcoin’s, offering reassurance for investors seeking stability.”
Bitcoin’s (BTC-USD) move lower follows the US Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady, keeping the benchmark federal funds rate within a 3.5%–3.75% range after delivering three consecutive quarter-point cuts as signs of weakness emerged in the labour market.
Fabian Dori, chief investment officer at Sygnum Bank, said the meeting confirmed a holding pattern rather than signalling a meaningful policy shift.
Read more: Will bitcoin price sink to $50k or soar to $125k in 2026?
“With growth still robust, inflation easing only gradually, and labour markets steady, the Fed left rates unchanged and reiterated a data-dependent, meeting-by-meeting approach,” Dori told Yahoo Finance. “As a result, the focus was less on the decision itself and more on how confident the Fed sounded about the path ahead.”
He added that the Fed’s decision was always more likely to reinforce consolidation rather than trigger a decisive market move, with political pressures now emerging as a potential future risk.
“The next thing to watch is whether the growing political overhang around Fed independence starts to show up more explicitly in Fed communication, and in how markets price policy risk,” Dori said.
Wenny Cai, COO of decentralised derivatives exchange Synfutures, said the Fed’s pause reflects recognition that financial conditions are already tightening, prompting a broader repricing across risk assets.
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“The result has been a rotation toward commodities and real assets, while speculative growth trades have declined,” Cai said. “Capital is moving toward cash flow, yield, and balance-sheet durability.”
In crypto markets, Cai described conditions as quieter but healthier. “Bitcoin (BTC-USD) dominance remains elevated near 60%, institutional leverage is restrained, and derivatives activity has shifted toward options rather than perpetual futures,” she said. “That signals a move toward hedged exposure rather than outright directional bets.”
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