Ether notches first new record since 2021 after Powell speech teasing rate cuts

The price of ether smashed through its 2021 record on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at upcoming rate cuts and investors returned to risk-on mode.

The second-largest cryptocurrency surged 15% late Friday, rising as high as $4,885.00 and surpassing its November 2021 record of $4,866.01.

Bitcoin rose 4% to $117,008.29.

The moves came during Powell’s annual address from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “With policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” said Powell.

“Traders seem to have been caught completely off-sides by Powell’s dovish comments today,” said Jordi Alexander, CEO at crypto trading firm Selini Capital. “The market positioning in recent sessions has seen clear risk-off moves in assets like crypto and tech, and today’s setting up of a September rate cut is causing a panicked repositioning, which could continue through the illiquid weekend as shorts get squeezed.”

“Momentum is back on the menu with the administration and the Fed seemingly aligned on easing,” he added.

Around the time of the speech, ETH saw about $120 million in short liquidations in a one-hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short ether and the coin’s price rises, they buy ETH back from the market to close their positions. In turn, this pushes the coin’s price even higher and results in more positions being liquidated.

Shares of companies focused on accumulating ether, which were some of the hardest hit this week when investors rotated out of tech names, bounced with the coin Friday. Bitmine Immersion and SharpLink Gaming jumped 12% and 15%, respectively. Bitmine fell more than 7% on the week, its first down week in three.

Shares of Peter Thiel-backed ETHzilla tumbled more than 31% at one point Friday after the ether treasury company offered up to 74.8 million of its shares for resale. It ended the session off 31.4% following Powell’s Jackson Hole remarks.

Elsewhere, Solana-focused treasury firm DeFi Development surged 21%, and crypto exchange Coinbase and bitcoin proxy Strategy advanced 6% each.

In the past two months, ether has emerged as a leader in the crypto market. That shift was catalyzed by regulatory tailwinds that prompted a boom in institutional interest around stablecoins, which account for 40% of all blockchain fees and more than half of which are powered by the Ethereum blockchain.

Ether is “the biggest macro trade over the next 10 to 15 years and a lot of it has to do with the fact that stablecoins have become the Chat GPT moment for crypto,” Fundstrat’s Tom Lee recently told CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange.” “And now we have the GENIUS Act and Project Crypto from the SEC, which is essentially Wall Street running onto the blockchain.”

—CNBC’s Nick Wells contributed reporting