22 May 2026: Bitcoin Closes Below $77K as the Warsh Era Begins at the Fed

Bitcoin closes out Pizza Day 2026 trading around $76,700 as Kevin Warsh takes his place as Chair of the US Federal Reserve, the afternoon’s modest altcoin gains fade into the Friday close, and crypto markets end the week broadly where they began it: cautious, range-bound, and sitting on a Fear and Greed reading that has barely shifted in two days.

The total cryptocurrency market cap stands at approximately $2.65 trillion as European markets close on Friday, down around 0.6% over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin’s share of that figure holds at 58.1%, broadly stable throughout the week and reflecting the continued concentration of institutional capital in the original asset. The Fear and Greed Index, which aggregates sentiment signals from price momentum, trading volume, and social media activity, sits at 28, placing it in Fear territory. That reading has not moved since Thursday morning: neither SpaceX’s disclosed Bitcoin position, nor Pizza Day, nor Warsh’s formal appointment have been enough to nudge the needle into Neutral.

Bitcoin is trading at around $76,700 (approximately £57,000), down roughly 1.3% over the past 24 hours, having given back all of the afternoon’s modest gains and slipping to its lowest level of the day as the London close approached.

The move is a reversal of what was, briefly, an encouraging picture. Through the morning and into the early afternoon, Bitcoin held the $77,000 zone with reasonable consistency, and smaller assets were outpacing it in what looked like tentative capital rotation. By late afternoon that picture had changed: Bitcoin touched $76,607 before recovering slightly to settle around $76,700 into the evening. That low is the weakest level Bitcoin has traded at all week, though it remains well above the $75,000 area that acted as support during the April drawdown.

Today is Bitcoin Pizza Day, the 16th anniversary of Laszlo Hanyecz’s purchase of two Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000 BTC in 2010. At today’s prices, those coins are worth roughly $767 million. According to BeInCrypto, that figure is $328 million lower than the equivalent on Pizza Day 2025, when Bitcoin was trading close to $110,000. Bitcoin is still sitting around 30% below where it traded a year ago on the same date.

The most consequential question heading into next week is whether the $76,000 level holds. Bitcoin has repeatedly found buyers in the mid-to-high $70,000 range over recent months, and a sustained break below $75,500 would be the first meaningful sign that the Q2 recovery is faltering.

Ethereum is trading at around $2,114 (approximately £1,572), down roughly 1.1% over the past 24 hours, tracking Bitcoin’s direction without significantly amplifying or dampening the move.

The ETH/BTC ratio has remained broadly stable through the afternoon session, meaning Ethereum is following Bitcoin rather than expressing any independent view. Its price action is consolidating below the $2,200 level it briefly tested earlier in the month, and there is no specific catalyst for Friday’s softness beyond the general caution in risk assets heading into the weekend close.

The level to watch for Ethereum is $2,100, which has acted as loose support through May. A break below that on meaningful volume would be the first signal that the recent range is shifting lower.

XRP is trading at around $1.35 (approximately £1.00), down roughly 2.1% over the past 24 hours, the sharpest 24-hour decline among the major assets in today’s update.

XRP’s move lower tracks the broader market direction but is slightly more pronounced, consistent with the pattern seen in altcoins when risk appetite tightens ahead of a weekend. There is no XRP-specific catalyst today. The asset has held above $1.25 through May without a serious test of that level, and whether that resilience continues into next week is the more useful question to track than Friday’s directional move.

BNB is trading at around $656 (approximately £488), essentially unchanged over the past 24 hours, the most stable major asset in today’s session.

BNB’s resilience against the broader softness stands out, though no specific catalyst explains it. The asset underpins the Binance exchange and its broader ecosystem, and has held its ground while Bitcoin and Ethereum drifted lower through the afternoon. For context on how BNB works, our explainer on BNB and Binance covers the mechanics of exchange tokens and why they tend to trade differently from other large-cap assets. BNB’s flat close is worth noting as a data point for how the Binance ecosystem is holding up in a cautious market.

The dominant development for crypto markets today is not a price move. It is the formal start of Kevin Warsh’s tenure as Chair of the US Federal Reserve, with his swearing-in ceremony hosted at the White House by President Trump on Friday afternoon, succeeding Jerome Powell after Senate confirmation on 13 May by a 54-45 vote.

Warsh’s confirmation generated considerable excitement in crypto markets because he disclosed a personal crypto portfolio worth more than $100 million across over 30 digital asset projects including Bitcoin and Solana. He has described Bitcoin as a useful signal for policymakers and said the asset does not make him nervous, making him the first Fed Chair to hold and publicly acknowledge significant exposure to digital assets.

That enthusiasm has not yet translated into sustained price gains. Bitcoin fell from around $82,000 to below $80,000 in the days following his Senate confirmation, as traders recalibrated around the macro environment Warsh inherits. His monetary policy stance is considered broadly hawkish, and a Fed chair who holds Bitcoin but signals higher rates for longer is not a straightforwardly positive scenario for crypto prices.

Separately, the decentralised prediction market Polymarket faced two significant developments on Friday. Blockchain analyst ZachXBT flagged a security incident in which approximately $520,000 was drained from two Polymarket smart contracts on the Polygon network. Polymarket confirmed the incident, attributing it to a compromised private key on an internal operations wallet used for reward payouts, and stated that user funds were unaffected. On-chain incidents involving operational wallets differ from user fund exposure, a distinction covered in our explainer on crypto bridge hacks. The US House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. James Comer and reported by CoinDesk and CNBC, also launched a probe into Polymarket and rival Kalshi over concerns that government employees may have used non-public information to place winning bets.

Three things are worth tracking into next week. The first is whether Bitcoin holds the $76,000 support level. A sustained break below $75,500 on meaningful volume would represent the first genuine technical signal that the range is shifting lower rather than simply compressing.

The second is Kevin Warsh’s opening communications as Fed Chair. Markets will be watching closely for any indication of his intended pace of departure from Powell-era policy. A hawkish tone would likely put renewed pressure on risk assets broadly, crypto included. A deliberately neutral opening would be taken as a signal that any policy change is gradual rather than immediate.

The third is US PCE inflation data, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, due later next week. Crypto markets have proved consistently sensitive to this reading in 2026. A higher than expected number adds to the argument for rates staying elevated for longer. A reading in line with or below expectations would offer some relief.

Crypto Daily is Cristoniq’s evening market close summary for cryptocurrency, published nightly for informational purposes only. Nothing here is financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions.