Bitcoin Trades Above $20,000, Has The Fed Failed Again?

Bitcoin has been moving sideways over the past week in a tight range, but the cryptocurrency might experience volatility as bulls and bears fight over the monthly candle close. The benchmark has been unable to recover its gains from last week and continues to trade in the red over high timeframes.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) trades at $20,300 with sideways movement in 24 hours and a 6% loss over the past week. Along with Solana (8%) and Dogecoin (8%), Bitcoin is the worst performer in the crypto top ten by market cap.

BTC’s price moving sideways on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSDT Tradingview

In a recent report, trading firm QCP Capital shared some insights about the current market conditions. The crypto sector and other global markets are heavily influenced by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) and its monetary policy.

Last week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave his highly anticipated Jackson Hole speech which, as QCP Capital said, was addressed to the markets. The price of Bitcoin and other large cryptocurrencies was trending upward ahead of the speech, but quickly tumble as Powell turned hawkish.

The trading firm believes the U.S. financial institutions “failed again” with their communication strategy. Rather than provide markets with clarity and a roadmap, the Fed brought more uncertainty and instability.

The financial institution has been trying to slow down inflation in the U.S. dollar, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), by hiking interest rates. The markets have been trying to get ahead of the Fed and priced in their upcoming hikes.

In that sense, after Jackson Hole, QCP Capital claims market participants are pricing a 90% chance of another 75-basis point (bps) hike. This is potentially the continuation of the current bearish scenario for Bitcoin and the crypto market. The trading firm said:

Mkts are already pricing a 90% chance of a 75bp hike- which seems rather high, considering neither of these pieces of data are out yet. We think this is because markets understand the Fed wants to hike 75bp, to make up for the 2-mth intermeeting period between the last FOMC in July.

What To Expect From Bitcoin Heading Into September?

The Fed Chair said that their upcoming interest rate increase will be based on the CPI and the Nonfarm Payroll (NFP) indicator, used to measure the number of workers in the U.S. outside of the farming sector. This indicator can be “unpredictable” which adds to the current uncertainty in global markets.

The September NFP and CPI will be critical to determining the upcoming Fed approach. As QCP explained one metric could provide insight into the other trajectory:

We think a sizable Friday NFP miss will force markets to bring pricing back to ~60% into CPI. A CPI Y/Y at least in-line or lower than last month, or another flat or negative M/M print will allow the Fed to downshift to 50bp hikes from Sep onwards.

This will provide some room for more relief in the price of Bitcoin and the crypto market.