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.
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.
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.
