Will the Fed hold interest rates and gold rallies to new highs?

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I'm your host, Jen Sanasi.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday,

but the real fireworks might come from Chair Powell's press conference.

With the CME Fed Watch tool pricing and a 97% chance of a pause in rate cuts,

traders are focused on whether Powell will push back against President Trump's controversial new affordability measures.

Trump recently directed the government to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to lower rates.

A move critics say could reignite inflation.

Lastly, Powell might face questions about the DOJ investigation targeting him personally,

which he claims to be political vengeance for not slashing rates fast enough.

Gold has rallied 80% in the last year as the precious metal surge to an all-time high above

$5,000. But Orlyon CEO Bjorn

Schmidtke warns that most investors are buying a hidden threat. In an interview with Coin Desk,

Schmitke argued that 98% of gold exposure is essentially unallocated IOUs with no specific

bar attached. He warns that a seismic event or currency collapse could break

the delivery mechanism, leaving ETF holders with nothing but paper while physical prices soar.

The firm solution is to overhaul its treasury to hold X-A-U-T, which is backed by specific allocated

bars in Swiss vaults. Schmidtke calls this durable ownership, ensuring that even in a crisis,

the deed to the metal remains traceable on chain. And Bitcoin's hash rate fell about 10% during a

U.S. winter storm as the natural disaster offers a real-time stress test of the network's mining

centralization. Over the past two years, the top two mining pools have often controlled

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