Markets are restarting the discussion about interest rate hikes? Bitcoin and oil prices are becoming the key global risk sentiment indicatorsSince May 2026, global macro traders and Crypto market participants have noticed a notable shift: discussions about whether the “rate-hiking cycle” has truly ended are flaring up again. Unlike the dominance of rate-cut expectations for most of 2025, the market’s pricing weight for a potential re-hike by major central banks is rising. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and crude oil have shown highly synchronized volatility characteristics across multiple time dimensions. This phenomenon raises deeper questions: when a digital native asset moves in tandem with the king of traditional commodities, are they jointly becoming the next core indicators for measuring global risk sentiment?Why has the market started debating the possibility of renewed rate hikes again?A structural shift in inflation data is the direct driver bringing rate-hike discussions back. In the first quarter of 2026, the year-over-year growth rate of US core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) exceeded the market’s expected median for three consecutive months, and the transmission effects of services inflation and energy prices have not faded as quickly as expected. The labor market remains tightly balanced, with wage growth on a month-over-month basis still running above 0.4%. Taken together, these data suggest that “inflation’s final mile” is more stubborn than many models previously predicted.As a result, the probability implied by the interest-rate futures market for a 25 bps rate hike in the second half of 2026 rose from below 10% in early April to around 38% in mid-May. The frequency of phrasing used by FED officials in public remarks regarding “tightening policy further if necessary” has increased. Market expectations have shifted from a one-way rate-cut narrative to two-way risk pricing. This shift directly affects all assets priced off discount rates—and as an asset class highly sensitive to liquidity and real interest rates, Bitcoin is the first to feel it.What is the macro foundation behind the synchronized link between crude oil prices and Bitcoin?Crude oil is one of the most mature and liquid physical assets in global pricing, and its price movements have long been viewed as a compound signal of both inflation expectations and growth expectations. Bitcoin, meanwhile, is viewed by some market participants as a “quasi-commodity” in the digital era, but its volatility is far higher than that of traditional commodities. The recent synchrony between the two is not accidental.When the market begins re-discussing rate hikes, the shared underlying driver is “demand-side resilience exceeding expectations.” Rising crude oil prices reflect that real-economy demand has not slowed materially, while Bitcoin prices in the same macro environment are highly sensitive to risk appetite. When both rise together or both fall together, they are essentially describing the same macro scenario: growth stronger than expected → inflation pressure persists → probability of rate hikes rises → expectations of tighter liquidity → re-pricing of risk assets. In this chain, Bitcoin and crude oil are no longer independent assets; #StockTradingChallengeUpTo17000U