In brief
- The Fed delivered a 25bps cut in an 11–1 vote, but markets reacted with little enthusiasm.
- Bitcoin slipped 0.69% after briefly touching $117K earlier in the day.
- Overall market sentiment remains neutral, though predictors on Myriad lean bullish.
Fed fatigue or was it simply priced in all along? Bitcoin is down a paltry 1% today, currently trading at around $115,500, following the Federal Reserve's widely telegraphed quarter-point rate cut.
The crypto market appears a bit gassed, but if anything, today’s relatively small drop in prices could be interpreted as a classic “buy the rumor, sell the news” event.
The Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point in an 11-to-1 vote, putting the overnight funds rate in a range between 4.00%-4.25%.
Rate cuts are typically bullish for risk assets, and yet markets appeared to have been pricing in this move for weeks and showed little enthusiasm. Bitcoin, for instance, was unable to hold above the psychologically important $117,000 level after briefly touching it today.
The overall crypto market still sits above $4 trillion, though down less than 1% in the last 24 hours, while the average performance of the top 20 cryptocurrencies has slipped 0.43%, according to data from Coinmarketcap. So, no FOMO just yet from the Fed’s easing. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains almost perfectly neutral at 51 points, down 6 points from last week’s greedy mood.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell characterized the cut as "risk management" rather than something more directed at shoring up a weak economy, which may explain the market's lukewarm response. With a 96% chance of a 25 basis point cut already priced in way before the announcement, traders appear to be executing the classic "buy the rumor, sell the news" playbook.
The political drama surrounding the Fed decision added another layer of uncertainty. Newly installed Governor Stephen Miran—a widely recognized pro-Trump economist who advised him during his previous tenure—was the only policymaker voting against the quarter-point move, instead advocating for an even larger half-point cut.
Bitcoin (BTC) price: The consolidation continues
So what can be gleaned from the Bitcoin charts today?
The daily chart for BTC shows a market in limbo, with price action basically trading sideways since June, but with an ever so slightly upwards trajectory.
Bitcoin opened today at $116,836, but dipped to a low of $114,747 immediately after the Fed’s announcement, before bouncing to its current price for a net loss of less than 1% on the day.
The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, for Bitcoin sits at 58 in neutral to bullish territory. RSI measures price momentum on a scale of 0 to 100, where values above 70 indicate overbought conditions and below 30 suggest oversold levels. Bitcoin has gained a bit of momentum since dropping below its average price over the last 50 days of $110,000 back in late August
The Average Directional Index, or ADX, which measures trend strength regardless of direction, for BTC is currently at 18. For traders, this shows that the market is basically neutral—traders are essentially waiting for a catalyst to establish the next major move. (Anything under 25 tells traders that a trend isn’t really in place.)
This typically means range-bound trading will continue until a breakout occurs hitting a new all-time high or breakdown below $104,000, which is the average price of Bitcoin over the last 200 days.
It’s these exponential moving averages, or EMAs, that offer a glimmer of hope.
Until a few days ago, the 50-day EMA (the average price over the last 50 trading days) and the 200-day EMA started to compress, hinting at potentially bearish times. This bounce has been enough to increase the gap, which means Bitcoin is still in a bullish formation. Slow, yes, but bullish nonetheless.
The key question now is whether the Fed's signal of two more cuts before year-end will be enough to reignite risk appetite, or if concerns about persistent inflation and political interference at the central bank will keep buyers on the sidelines.
Over on Myriad, predictors are bullish. Users on the prediction market, developed by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, place the odds at 61% that Bitcoin keeps rising and hits $125K before it drops back down to $105K. They also believe there’s an 80% chance Bitcoin stays above $105K throughout the entire month of September.
Key Levels:
- Immediate support: $113,700 (EMA50)
- Strong support: $108,000 (recent consolidation base visible on chart)
- Immediate resistance: $119,000 (recent rejection zone)
- Strong resistance: $124,621 (all-time high)
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.