Fed forgets long-term dollar devaluation when pricing eggs in BTC
The St. Louis Federal Reserve stirred up a mix of amusement and curiosity from the crypto community on Tuesday, May 7, after publishing a post showing how the cost of eggs in Bitcoin (BTC) has fluctuated over the last 14-months compared to the U.S. dollar.
On June 6, the Fed research arm posted a blog post titled “Buying eggs with bitcoins - a look at currency-related price volatility.”
The FRED Blog compares egg prices in U.S. dollars vs. bitcoins. Check out the post to see which prices are more stable https://t.co/Qfy9w8zgBk pic.twitter.com/qpFH4ny33S
The post initially features a graph showing the historical price of eggs in U.S. dollars for every month since January 2021, noting that the prices fluctuated between $1.47 and $2.52 over the 14-month period.
It then follows this up with a graph showing how Bitcoin has behaved in the same time period, noting that the price fluctuated “much more than it did for the U.S. dollar price.”
The report did not stipulate whether the price of eggs had increased or the dollar had devalued, or both, as causes for the trend.
It also drew attention to Bitcoin’s transaction fees, which it says can fall between $2 and $50.
“Plus, you’d need to add a bitcoin transaction fee, which has been about $2 lately, but which can spike above $50 on occasion. Hopefully, if you were making this purchase with bitcoin, you’d put many many more eggs in your basket,” it wrote.
The blog post ultimately drew ire from the crypto community on Twitter, with many arguing that the fed was “cherry-picking” the time period to push the narrative of Bitcoin’s instability, rather than “zooming out”, which would instead show the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar.
The Fed wrote a post showing the price of eggs in USD
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