News Block: Bitcoin Price Hits 8-Month High, Homes Just Got Harder to Afford, and CLARITY Act Fails

Natalie Brunell (0:00)

Welcome to the Coin Stories News Block powered exclusively by Ledn. I'm Natalie Brunell, and in about 10 minutes or less, I'll provide you with insightful updates on Bitcoin, financial markets and the global economy. Everything you need to know in one block. Let's go.

The Fed raised interest rates last week for the first time in three years, and it just made one of the biggest problems in the country worse. The average 30-year mortgage rate rose to nearly 7 percent, the highest since early 2025 And depending on which side of that number you're on, you're living in a completely different economy. So let's start with the people who already own a home. If you bought or refinanced when borrowing was cheap, you're sitting pretty. Most mortgages in America are locked in far below today's rate, a lot of them under 4 percent. And so those homeowners are not going anywhere because the moment they sell, they're trading a 3 percent mortgage for nearly 7 percent. One. So the house stays off the market. And that's why existing home sales are running at close to the slowest pace in 30 years. Nobody's moving. The whole country is stuck in place. Now, on the other side are the people trying to get in. But look at what it actually costs. Take a $500,000 house, which is a little above the national median, but a bargain in most big cities. If you put 20 percent down at today's rate, you're paying roughly $2,650 a month in mortgage payments. Over 30 years, that's about $550,000 just in interest alone, more than the house cost itself. That's not normal. If you rewind to January 2021, rates hit an all-time low of 2.65 percent, and home prices were about 40 percent lower. So that same home cost around $350,000.

And if you put 20 percent down, you were only paying around $1,100 a month in mortgage payments, with roughly $127,000 in interest over the life of the loan. That's about a third of the price. Same house, five years apart. The payment more than doubled, and the interest more than quadrupled. So no wonder mortgage applications are down 19 percent from a year ago. People didn't stop wanting homes. The math just stopped working. So the average first time home buyer in this country is now 40 years old. And if you're not in the market at all, this still reaches you because if you rent, you're probably bidding against everyone who got priced out of buying, and your landlord knows it. So if you're saving for a first home, the goalpost keeps moving faster than your savings can catch up. And here's the honest version of what happened. Money was basically free for a decade, and then it wasn't. So the people who won weren't the hardest working or the smartest. They were just the ones who happened to own hard assets like homes before the price of money changed. And that's the whole game. Now the Fed is raising rates to clean up the inflation that cheap money helped create. And the people paying for it are the ones who never got in the door. Well, the Clarity Act failed its Senate test last week, but here's the thing. Bitcoin does not need Congress's permission. It's been running since 2009 without Washington having to write any rules of the road. But the companies built around it, the crypto industry does need to know what the law is. And after more than a year of negotiating, Congress still can't agree. Last Tuesday, the Senate voted on whether to advance the bill and it needed 60 votes, but it only got 49 Every Democrat voted no, including seven who spent months negotiating it, and four Republicans joined them. And the fight really came down to one thing, the president's family. Last year, President Trump disclosed that he and his family earned about $1.4 billion from digital asset ventures, an amount that news agencies call unprecedented for a sitting president. More than 500 million alone came from World Liberty, which is a company the Trump family controls. Now, Republicans did move on ethics. Their revised bill would have ended the president's meme coins, which Trump agreed to, and forced officials to sell or blind trust any significant stake. But Democrats said it had no teeth because enforcement would fall to the Justice Department, which is now run by the president's former personal lawyer. They wanted the rules extended to Trump's children also. Republicans said no. Democrat Ruben Gallego accused them of, quote, twisting themselves into knots to appease President Trump. But Republicans say Democrats never intended to vote yes on clarity. So the regulators are moving without Congress. The CFTC sent its own proposal to the White House last Thursday, but rules and agency rights the next administration can undo. But big picture, Bitcoin keeps operating. The industry still doesn't know the rules of the road, and the conflict of interest question that killed the bill is still sitting there unanswered. We'll make sure to keep following all the developments coming out of Washington.