Tuesday and Wednesday are important days for bitcoin (BTC) and the overall crypto industry. On Tuesday, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), ex-CEO of the bankrupt FTX, will participate in the US House of Representatives hearing and testify about the collapse of his empire.
The Federal Reserve (Fed), the US central bank, will also announce the monthly results of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce the new US interest rate.
Hearing FTX
Last month, it was announced that the US House Financial Services Committee would hold a hearing to investigate the FTX fiasco. The committee said it expected to hear from concerned individuals and parties including SBF, Alameda Research and Binance.
SBF had first indicated that he might not show up for this hearing, because he would still be busy with ”learning and assessing”. However, Maxine Waters, the chair of the Financial Services Committee, had demanded that the former CEO of FTX be present next Tuesday.
SBF had said in a tweet that he still does not have access to much data about his companies. According to him, this means that he cannot be as helpful as he would like.
1) I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like.
But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th. https://t.co/KR34BsNaG1
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 9, 2022
It is hoped that the hearing will bring information to the table about what happened behind the scenes at FTX that ultimately led to the bankruptcy.
Important for bitcoin: Federal reserve decision
The past few months have been dominated by rising interest rates and a trend reversal will have to wait for a while. Inflation data from the United States will be released on Tuesday and will have a major impact on Wednesday’s interest rate decision. In its last four meetings, the Fed has opted for a rate hike of 0.75 percentage point, but a 0.5 percentage point hike is currently expected.
Last month you could read in the Bitcoin news that the CPI was lower than expected. The price of bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies logically reacted positively to these results. Currently, the price of bitcoin has been trading quite stable around $17,000 for a while, but that seems to be coming to an end soon.