SUMMARY

• Traders are pricing in a 65% chance of a Fed rate cut to the 4.5-5% range, with Bitcoin holding above $60,000 as they await FOMC updates.
• Circle announces a partnership with Polymarket, while the CoinDesk 20 index rises by 1.1%.

Bitcoin remained above $60,000 early Wednesday after a brief plunge in late U.S. trading hours. Traders are energetically anticipating the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) assembly, where Fed Chair Jerome Powell is broadly anticipated to report a rate cut. As of press time, Bitcoin was trading fair below $60,000, extending its weekly gains to over 7%. Other major tokens appeared mixed results: ether, BNB Chain’s BNB, and dogecoin saw gains under 1%, whereas XRP, ADA, and Toncoin endured slight losses. The CoinDesk 20, which tracks the largest tokens in the market, was up by 1.1%.

The focus remains on the FOMC’s interest rate decision, which will be released later Wednesday. Generally, rate cuts have supported bullish market opinion as lower borrowing costs fuel risk-taking in sectors like cryptocurrency. Traders are currently estimating a 67% chance that the Federal Reserve will cut rates to a extent between 4.5% and 5%. This would bring rates down from their current two-decade high of 5.25%-5.5%. A few traders are indeed guessing around the plausibility of a bigger cut of 50 basis points (bps). Whereas a 25-bps cut is more common, a 50-bps cut might flag more profound economic concerns, possibly activating a sell-off in riskier resources like Bitcoin.

Alice Liu, research head at CoinMarketCap, commented that whereas a 25-bps cut would likely boost the market, a 50-bps cut might lead to worries around the state of the economy. If traders see the rate cut as a reaction to weakening economic conditions, it might raise concerns about future earnings and development, driving a short-term market pullback. She also noted that Q4 tends to be a solid period for Bitcoin, with historical information showing an average price increment of 90% amid this quarter over the last 10 years.

At the Token 2049 conference in Singapore, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci communicated optimism, foreseeing Bitcoin will reach new all-time highs following the expected rate cuts and clearer U.S. regulatory rules for cryptocurrency. Scaramucci’s acceptance of the following Fed meeting seems to bring a bigger rate cut of 150 bps, further boosting the crypto market. Meanwhile, Sui saw a 7% rise, driven by the launch of USDC on its platform and Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), which empowers cross-chain flows on Sui.

Circle moreover declared a new partnership with Polymarket amid the Token 2049 event. The collaboration will encourage coordinated Circle’s infrastructure, including CCTP, into the Polymarket prediction market stage, improving its capabilities and extending its reach in the crypto ecosystem.