Standard Chartered Calls for $40K ETH as Trump Targets Powell

After years of tactically shrugging off criticisms from President Trump, Fed Chair Powell is taking a stand. In response to a criminal inquiry being opened against him, Chair Powell took his fight with President Trump public with an unprecedented message from a Fed Chair facing an unprecedented attack.

Chair Powell made no bones about it:

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” he said.

Reporting by the Washington Post seemed to back the political nature of the inquiry by the D.C. District Attorney's office. The Post reported Monday that Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte sold President Trump on the plan to put pressure on Powell.

In the aftermath, all of the living former Fed Chairs (Yellen, Bernanke, and Greenspan) rallied around Powell by signing a joint statement that condemned the political pressure on the Fed. A number of former Republican and Democratic Treasury Secretaries joined on as well, writing:

“The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence … It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success.”

A few hours later, the Republicans in Congress who were against the criminal inquiry were stacking up as well. Senator Tillis (R-NC) vowed to block any of Trump’s Fed nominees if the issue wasn’t resolved. That’s particularly important considering Powell’s term is up in May. Trump’s pick to backfill Powell (who was also a Trump nominee, in case you forgot) would need to make it past the Senate Banking Committee first, of which Tillis is a member, along with 12 other Republicans and 11 Democrats.

Then, House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR) called it “an unnecessary distraction” and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also called for an investigation into the DOJ for “coercion.”

It’s worth noting that as of Gallup’s last poll in December, Chair Powell carried the highest approval rating of any U.S. public official — at 44%. Maybe Trump picked the wrong fight at the worst time as more moderate Republicans scrutinize his overreach.

What It Means for Crypto

If you believe the idea that Bitcoin is a safe haven asset, you would think an unprecedented battle between the Fed Chair and the President would boost Bitcoin. But then again, the stock market didn’t seem to care that much about the back-and-forth (perhaps due to the response by Republicans in the Senate.)

Midway through Monday’s session, when stocks turned positive for the day, Bitcoin was still only up slightly to trade above $91,000. Strength in commodities, mainly silver and gold, continues to embarrass the gains in crypto. Silver is up 16% YTD after a big 2025.

Considering structural tailwinds, it’s surprising to see Bitcoin continue to chop, but institutional demand just isn’t there. According to CoinShares, digital asset vehicles saw weekly outflows of nearly half a billion last week:

But if declining trust in markets becomes a larger story, perhaps that could be a bigger boost to Ethereum and the work they’ve been doing to tokenize all kinds of assets. More transparency, fewer middlemen, and a desire to have assets onchain.

According to Standard Chartered’s new note, Ethereum stands to be a main beneficiary of that trend, saying ETH could hit $40,000 by 2030 and $7,500 this year.

Crucial CLARITY Act Approaches

After the GENIUS Act passed last year, the hope was that the CLARITY Act (which seeks to codify rules of crypto market infrastructure and when a crypto goes from commodity to security) would pass soon after.

Instead, things dragged on a bit as a battle ensued over who would be running the CFTC. Now that it’s been resolved, the CLARITY Act’s moment is here — but not without a little drama of its own.

If you’ll recall, the GENIUS Act was all about setting up rules around stablecoins. A big part of that was a compromise on stablecoin issuers not being able to promise yield, while independent partners, like Coinbase, would be able to.

Well, now banks aren’t so sure they like that anymore and are pushing to potentially reopen the issue with the new act. Particularly as more financial institutions play catch up on offering digital assets of their own. Now, even Coinbase says they might battle to not see the CLARITY Act passed if it undoes the victory they thought the crypto industry had won with the GENIUS Act.

The Senate Banking Committee is planning to hold the much anticipated markup of the Clarity Act this Thursday at 10 AM.

Get Ready to Vote!

Coinage’s Crypto Project of the Year is back! It’s always fun to bring the crypto space together for a little friendly competition.

After your nominations, we’re looking forward to discussions from leaders of the most promising crypto projects about their growth in 2025 — and what’s ahead in 2026.

Get ready to vote on who advances, this year $COINAGE holders are also invited to participate.

Coinage is a community-owned DAO letting our NFT holders become actual co-owners in one of the fastest-growing Web3 media outlets. Mint an NFT and become a member today to open a path to patronage dividends, or stake with us to support our project. You can find more of our coverage on Zora, where our creator coin has become one of the top coins on the platform.