Fed holds rates, but signals inflation fight isn’t over

The Fed holds rates steady with two dissents favoring a hike. Plus: the CFTC chief on AI and ‘autonomous trading,’ and bitcoin treasury Datavault AI plunges 50%. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Wednesday, October 28, 2026 Fed leaves interest rates unchanged, as expected The Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate range at 3.75%–4% on Wednesday, as markets fully expected, but signaled it intends to tackle stubborn inflation. The statement said economic activity is expanding at a strong pace while inflation remains elevated. The vote was 10–2, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissenting in favor of a hike. After a string of Fed speakers this month signaled comfort with a slower pace of tightening, markets priced out a hike today but fully price one in for the central bank’s early-December meeting. The 10-year Treasury yield rose about four basis points to 5.025%, and bitcoin edged up to around $81,000. Read more → Policy CFTC chief poses questions about policing AI but calls it a road to ‘autonomous trading’ CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said at an agency forum on AI that the convergence of AI, crypto and modern financial infrastructure could transform markets, extending a decades-long move toward autonomous trading. He also raised the questions regulators haven’t answered yet: whether the developer of an AI trading agent has to register, who is liable if an agent goes rogue, and whether markets need a “know-your-agent” identification regime. Selig said the agency’s experience with crypto developers offers a model. The CFTC will hold a roundtable on 24/7 trading on Dec. 15. 3-minute read → Markets Bitcoin treasury Datavault AI plunges 50% after firm says it can’t access its BTC Shares of Datavault AI fell 49.55% on Tuesday, closing at $0.067, after the company disclosed that it hasn’t been able to withdraw bitcoin from the Biconomy exchange since June and will restate its results. The 1,309 BTC was credited off-chain as part of a $150 million share-and-warrant purchase by Scilex, and Datavault now says it should have been booked as an amount owed by Scilex. The correction cuts reported assets by $92.2 million at the end of 2025 and $49 million as of June 2026, and forces Datavault to rethink whether it can count on that bitcoin to fund operations. Biconomy didn’t respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment. 2-minute read → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.

3 things to watch before the Fed decides on interest rates

Bitcoin is rising into the Fed’s 2 p.m. ET decision, with three things to watch: dissent, financial conditions and Chair Warsh’s take on inflation. Plus: what history says about bitcoin after midterm elections. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Wednesday, October 28, 2026   The Fed announces its interest-rate decision at 2 p.m. ET, with Chair Kevin Warsh’s press conference half an hour later, and bitcoin is rising into it, recently trading near $81,400, up more than 2% over 24 hours, with ether, solana and XRP also up more than 2%. The committee is widely expected to hold rates at 3.75%–4%, so the focus is on three things. First, dissent: if three or more voting members favor a hike, that would signal growing urgency to tighten and could weigh on bitcoin. Second, whether Warsh acknowledges the easing in financial conditions, with the 10-year Treasury yield back near 5%, down 36 basis points since Oct. 7. Third, what he says about inflation, which has come in above expectations for two straight months with oil near $100. Stay alert. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 9am ET Asset Price 24h BTC $80,608 +0.83% ETH $2,336 +0.70% SOL $101.26 +1.24% XRP $1.32 +0.30% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. A message from Hex Trust Founded in 2018, Hex Trust is the regulated digital asset partner for institutions that want to do more than just hold. More than 600 funds, banks, family offices, foundations, payment firms and OTC desks rely on us to safeguard, move and grow their assets, all with one licensed provider. Our custody gives clients the protection of cold storage without the wait. Assets stay offline and fully secured, and transactions still go out instantly. Around custody, we’ve built the services institutions actually use: OTC trading, staking, fiat on and off ramps, payments, and Aura, our wealth platform for private clients. Hex Trust is licensed in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai, so partners can grow across Asia and the Middle East with one compliant counterparty instead of piecing together several. Learn More What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Bitcoin nears $81,000 ahead of Fed decision as ZEC jumps 8% Bitcoin climbed nearly 2% to just under $81,000 in Wednesday’s Asian morning hours, clawing back the weekend’s slip to nearly $79,000 as traders braced for the Fed’s rate decision. ZEC led the majors, jumping 8% to about $1,320 and back above $1,300 after Monday’s selloff. HYPE added nearly 5% to about $81, XRP and DOGE rose roughly 3%, ether gained 2% to just above $2,350 and SOL climbed about 2% to $102. The bounce came a day after Galaxy told investors that now is the time to accumulate bitcoin: Alex Thorn, the firm’s head of firmwide research, said the bear market likely ended in June and bitcoin is in the accumulation phase that has preceded prior advances, pointing to its move back above the 50-week moving average, lighter selling pressure and rising U.S. debt. Traders will listen to Warsh’s press conference for any hint of a December rate hike, which would make borrowing more expensive and tends to pull money out of risk assets like crypto, while a daily bitcoin close above $82,500 could signal the recovery is gaining momentum. Read more → Finance   Story 2 of 3 JPMorgan, Coca-Cola, Dell also say ‘no’ to OKX-ICE tokenized stock trading plan JPMorgan Chase, Coca-Cola and Dell Technologies have joined the growing pushback against tokenized stock trading plans from crypto exchange OKX and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange, with nearly half the companies on the venture’s original roster now opting out. They appeared, along with four other companies including Applied Materials, Adobe and Sandisk, in an updated public notice dated Tuesday from OKXICE, the firms’ joint venture. The seven additions bring disclosed objections to 33, up from 26 in Monday’s notice, and 30 of the 62 companies originally proposed for trading, about 48%, have now opted out, according to CoinDesk’s tally. The venue plans round-the-clock, stablecoin-settled trading through Uniswap v4 liquidity pools on OKX’s X Layer blockchain under the SEC’s five-year “Innovation Exemption,” and companies have 30 days after notification to object. OKXICE co-chair Andrew Cuomo previously said many companies were expected to wait and see how the market develops, describing the SEC’s limited experiment as a sandbox. Read more → Markets   Story 3 of 3 Here’s how much bitcoin and the S&P 500 could rally after midterms Both bitcoin and the S&P 500 have historically posted gains in the year after U.S. midterm elections. Excluding 2010, when the market was tiny and fringe, bitcoin rose an average of 53.7% in the 12 months after the past three midterms, according to CoinDesk’s analysis, while the S&P 500 has averaged a 15.17% gain in the year after midterms since 1950, versus 7.30% in all other years, per Hartford Funds. The piece cautions that history is limited and that bitcoin’s post-midterm surges may owe more to its four-year halving cycle than to politics, since the bear markets that followed each halving landed in midterm years: 2014, 2018, 2022 and now 2026. Bitcoin has already bounced more than 35% from its June low below $60,000, and markets have largely priced in a divided government, with Democrats expected to retake at least one chamber of Congress after the Nov. 3 elections. Read more → CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. Crypto Daybook Americas: A newsletter from CoinDesk Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.  Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences

Joe Lubin, Keone Hon, Eleanor Terrett - Just announced

Builders, policy voices, and the people allocating capital all in Hong Kong ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­  

VIEW THE SPEAKER LINE UP The financial system is being rebuilt at a pace nobody predicted, and adoption is accelerating. The people leading that charge will all be in Hong Kong this February.   Consensus Hong Kong brings together the people building the infrastructure, deploying the capital, shaping the policy, and telling the story, all in one place, with the access to match.   Whether you’re launching a product, raising a fund, navigating compliance, or simply trying to stay ahead of the curve, these are the conversations that will shape what comes next. BUILD Joseph Lubin CEO Consensys Keone Hon Co-Founder & GM Monad Kevin Lepsoe Founder ETHGas Joseph Lubin CEO Consensys Keone Hon Co-Founder & GM Monad Kevin Lepsoe Founder ETHGas ALLOCATE Joseph Chalom M CEO SharpLink Jeff Walton M Chief Risk Officer Strive Ella Zhang M Head of YZi Labs YZi Lab Joseph Chalom CEO SharpLink Jeff Walton Chief Risk Officer Strive Ella Zhang Head of YZi Labs YZi Lab REGULATE Allison Parent Chief Policy Officer Ondo Finance Fahmi Syed President Midnight Foundation Allison Parent Chief Policy Officer Ondo Finance Fahmi Syed President Midnight Foundation REPORT Eleanor Terrett Co-Founder & Host Crypto in America Nikhilesh De Managing Editor CoinDesk Eleanor Terrett Co-Founder & Host Crypto in America Nikhilesh De Managing Editor CoinDesk And this is only the beginning. We’re adding more speakers every day, so check back often to see who’s joined the line up.   We’re also working on identifying how we can make this year’s Consensus even more valuable for you. We’re curating the room with the brightest minds, building new 1:1 meetings programs, and are assembling the best-in-class partners to showcase their solutions and expertise at the event.   There’s no time to waste, lock in and grab your pass today. REGISTER NOW Premium Sponsorships Available With 10,000+ decision-makers meeting us back in Hong Kong, now’s your chance to secure one of our high-impact sponsorship packages before your competitors do. INQUIRE NOW Save with Official Consensus Travel Partners   Experience the full energy of Consensus Hong Kong by staying right in the heart of the action.  BOOK MY TRAVEL Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk. All rights reserved. CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY, 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage Preferences