There are no prizes for guessing the root of Thursday's cryptocurrency rally. As much of the investing world is well aware, the big market-shaking news item was that the Federal Reserve (Fed) cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points the day before. And, as usual with such moves, this spurred a gold rush into relatively risky financial assets like digital coins and tokens. Compounding that, cryptourrencies effectively received a seal of approval from one of this country's most prominent politicians.

It almost seemed as if the crypto market was having one of those throw-a-dart-and-hit-a-winner days. Many altcoins joined a rally that saw widespread double-digit gains. These happy marchers included Aptos (CRYPTO: APT), up 15% in early-evening trading, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) with an 11% gain, and Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX), advancing nearly 14% higher. The often-maligned meme coin segment wasn't left out, either; Pepe (CRYPTO: PEPE) had booked a more than 11% increase.

A Fed rate cut was entirely expected throughout the investing world. However, opinions about how deep the cut would go varied among investors and analysts. Many were expecting a more cautious move by the regulator; a level of 25 basis points was a common guess. The 50-basis point reduction was the maximum in quite a few instances. So for lots of investors, the actual cut when announced was a pleasant surprise...and worthy of a dive into the more speculative corners of the financial markets.

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Source Fool.com