#美联储三年来首次加息25个基点 #Gate广场中秋团圆局 The rate hike is in—what next? How many more times can Bitcoin’s “bad news priced in” script play out?
The shoe has dropped. On September 17, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.00%, the first hike since July 2023.
CME data showed that the market’s pricing probability for a hike surged from 87% to 92.5% ahead of the meeting—most people had known the outcome for a long time.
How did Bitcoin perform? It fell to $75,355 within an hour of the decision, then quickly rebounded to $76,513. It looked like the classic “bad news priced in” script. But don’t rush to shout “sell the rumor, buy the fact.”
The real suspense has never been whether rates would be raised, but what the dot plot tells you about the next chapter.
The latest dot plot shows that 12 of the 18 officials expect another hike this year, while 4 expect two more. Not a single official expects a rate cut this year. The median rate forecast for 2027 was raised by 50 basis points to 4.1%, and the forecast for 2028 stands at 3.9%.
Xiong Yuan, chief economist at Guosheng Securities, said the rate hike as expected could be viewed as “a positive from short-term bad news being fully priced in.” But Warsh said at the press conference: “Inflation remains elevated. This summer’s inflation data did not indicate that the underlying trend had improved significantly.” He added an even more painful remark: “It is difficult for me to describe financial conditions as restrictive.”
Translation: These 25 basis points are just an appetizer. The tightening cycle has only just begun.
The crypto market has fallen from its August high of $82,000 to around $75,000, a decline of nearly 9%. Rate hike expectations, hotter-than-expected CPI, US Treasury yields breaking above 5%, and the CLARITY Act’s 49:49 Senate defeat—nearly all the bad news has already been reflected in prices.
Downside is limited, but the upside needs a catalyst. That catalyst will not fall out of the dot plot.
So where is the catalyst?
First, stablecoin funds flowing back to exchanges. Exchange stablecoin reserves have currently evaporated by $16 billion from their peak to around $64 billion, with bn holding 68.5% of them. If this figure starts to rise, it would indicate that off-exchange capital is entering the market.
Second, unexpectedly weak September nonfarm payrolls. The Federal Reserve currently projects an unemployment rate of 4.1%; if the actual figure is significantly below expectations, the rate hike narrative could be reversed.
Third, any positive signal on the regulatory front. The CLARITY Act fell just a few votes short this time, and the 49:50 vote shows that differences are narrowing, so another attempt is not impossible. CryptoQuant shows that short-term holders’ BTC transfers to exchanges within 24 hours surged from 19,400 coins to 33,100, with 23,200 coins dumped onto exchanges at a loss—this was the largest stop-loss sell-off in nearly a month. Krak saw more than 6,000 BTC flow in during a single day, while Bn saw more than 10,000. Wintermute transferred 2,550 BTC to Bn, worth approximately $193 million.
Selling pressure is concentrated among recent entrants. Long-term holders have not moved.
The rate hike is not the end of the story, but the starting point of the next chapter. The real question has never been whether the Federal Reserve will raise rates. The question is: who is willing to buy at this price? $BTC