Status Quo on the Fed in the USA, Bitcoin Raises Only an Eyebrow

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. The dreaded punch did not come after all. Kevin Warsh, the chairman of the Federal Reserve since May, announced on Wednesday at 8 PM (Paris time) that the key interest rate would remain within its current range. A wise, almost flat outcome that contradicts the scenario proposed by a heavyweight from Wall Street just a few hours earlier. The press conference at 8:30 PM remains, the real moment when everything could still change. Key points of this article:

• Kevin Warsh announced the Fed's decision to maintain the key interest rate, contradicting predictions from some influential Wall Street players.
• The reaction from the crypto market was limited, with Bitcoin not experiencing significant movements following the Fed's announcement.
  Nothing shocking in the statement itself: the key interest rate remains set between 3.50% and 3.75%, marking a fifth consecutive meeting without movement since the last cut, which was made in December 2025.
  On paper, exactly what the majority of the market expected. Nothing more. Just the day before, data from the CME (the organization that aggregates traders' bets on rate futures) indicated about 64% chances for this status quo, against 36% for a surprise hike. A figure that has significantly increased compared to the previous week, when the hypothesis of a hike did not exceed 26%. This created real doubt until the end, without overturning the final decision.
  Here’s where the story gets interesting. Citadel Securities, the trading division of the fund managing $67 billion, had warned its clients in the morning: it would be a hike, not the status quo expected by almost everyone.
  Frank Flight, head of macro strategy at Citadel, saw it as a golden opportunity for Warsh to definitively bury forward guidance (the thirty-year-old practice of indicating the trajectory of rates in advance) and act as a "salutary shock" forcing markets to react to data rather than to the expectations they had fabricated. UBS, for its part, did not rule out this scenario either. The result: both were wrong. On timing, not necessarily on substance, since nothing prevents their thesis of a tightening from being validated in September, just a little later than expected.
  Ironically, Warsh himself did nothing to dispel this climate of suspicion. Before Congress on July 14, he warned that the Fed had "no tolerance for persistently high inflation," a hawkish tone that left the door open for a strong move. Except that between speech and action, there are sometimes more than six thousand kilometers. Or, in this case, six weeks.
  The crypto market, however, did not really jump. Not really. Bitcoin was trading just after the announcement around $64,000, with limited movement in both directions, far from the peak of nearly $67,000 reached the previous week. The Fear & Greed Index (which measures the dominant market sentiment on a scale from 0 to 100) remained stuck at 35, in fear territory. A caution that is not illogical: with no surprises in the statement, there was little left to digest before the press conference.
  This relative calm also extends a trend already documented by K33 Research in recent weeks: Bitcoin has started to move a bit at its own pace, less tied to the fluctuations of the Nasdaq and traditional markets than it was last year. A Fed status quo that moves no one, precisely the kind of non-event that confirms this decoupling rather than refuting it.
  The statement is only half the show. The real question of the evening will be played out in the press room at 8:30 PM, where Warsh will have to choose between reproducing his silence from June regarding September and December, or allowing a tougher tone to filter through that would retrospectively validate Citadel's failed bet. Some investors continue to anticipate a tightening in the coming months, and a simple choice of words tonight could tip the balance. A reminder that on this issue, Bitcoin may not have finished being tossed around by a Fed that now prefers to speak through surprises rather than promises.