Bitcoin Barely Moves as the Fed Raises Rates 25 Basis Points

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate on Wednesday and the crypto market did almost nothing about it. The federal funds target moved a quarter point, to 3.75%-4.00%, in the first increase since July 2023. Bitcoin finished the evening within a few hundred dollars of where it started. The vote was unanimous. What the desks were reading afterwards was the projection sheet that came with the decision.

Twelve votes and no dissent

Four accounts of the decision agree on its shape. The Block and Coinpedia both give the vote as 12-0, while CoinDesk and Cointelegraph call it unanimous without publishing a count. The range is identical in all four, and so is the July 2023 marker. Almost nobody was surprised. The Block alone reports CME FedWatch data showing traders had priced the quarter point at 92% before the announcement, which is one account standing on its own and sits oddly well with how little the tape moved afterwards.

"Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace," the committee said in its statement, adding that the decision would "support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal."

Both clauses come from CoinDesk's Wednesday account of the statement, which also gives inflation as elevated. The statement itself was not retrieved for this article, and no other outlet read for it quotes those lines.

Three accounts, three closing prices

Every outlet describes a muted move and none of them puts the same number on it. CoinDesk has bitcoin around $75,700 after the announcement. The Block gives a band of $75,000 to $76,500 and a settle near $75,600, with ether swinging between roughly $2,370 and $2,430 before closing near $2,376. Coinpedia says $76,045. That is a spread of about $450 across three accounts of one evening, and they do not reconcile. Coinpedia alone sizes the whole crypto market at about $2.67 trillion. The rest of the top 20 registered the decision no more loudly, with The Block putting most of it flat to half a percent higher and solana and XRP up 1% and 1.5%; no other outlet published that breakdown.

The projection sheet is where they part company

The Block and Cointelegraph both report 16 of 18 policymakers expecting at least one more quarter-point increase before the year is out. CoinDesk says policymakers signalled one additional hike in 2026 and gives no count. Then the 2027 path splits. The Block reads the projections as rates holding around 4.1% through 2027. Coinpedia reads the same 4.1% median as two further increases after this year's, with the 2026 range ending at 4.00%-4.25%. One account describes a plateau and the other a climb to it, and we could not establish which reading the projection materials support, because they were not retrieved. Cooper Duschang of Talos told Cointelegraph that "the initial reaction suggests the Fed's decision was largely anticipated by crypto markets."

Thursday's tape

By Thursday the numbers had drifted up. Cointelegraph put bitcoin at $76,663, higher by 1.35% over 24 hours, and ether at $2,436.45, higher by 1.19%, both figures carried by that outlet alone at that hour. Underneath the price the positioning looks less settled. Cointelegraph reports about $82 million of bitcoin perpetual futures moving to net selling while spot absorbed $15.5 million of net buying, again on a single account. Coinpedia counts 86,565 traders liquidated over 24 hours for roughly $327.84 million, a tally no other outlet published on Wednesday. Macro prints have hit this market harder than this one did, and bitcoin slid under $77,000 when August core CPI ran hot. Fund money had already stepped back before the meeting, through a fourth straight day of spot ETF outflows. Most of the committee expects one more quarter point before December, and that is the number the next few weeks of pricing have to carry.