Bitcoin Falls on Wait-And-See Approach Ahead of U.S. FOMC Meeting

Markets "U.S. Fed to Freeze Interest Rates After FOMC Meeting"
BTC, Altcoins Fall Intra-Day On Exhaustion of Buying By Market Vigilance
Ju Ki-young "BTC Ends Rising...6 to 12 Months Sideways or Down"

The cryptocurrency market, including Bitcoin(BTC), fell on Mar. 18 due to a sense of caution ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's announcement of the Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC) benchmark interest rate on Mar. 19.

Markets are raising public opinion that the Fed will freeze its key interest rate through a FOMC meeting. After last month's FOMC meeting, a number of key Fed figures, including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, left comments signaling a rate freeze.

Concerns that the market could be engulfed in large volatility if the Fed announces a rate freeze after the FOMC meeting led to a depletion of buying in the market.

A number of altcoins fell about 2% on Mar. 18, including a 1.4% drop in Bitcoin during the day.

◇Bitcoin = Bitcoin price is $82,845 at 4:30 p.m. on Mar. 18, 2025. The Bitcoin share (dominance) was 61.68%.

The long(up) and short(down) betting ratios in the Bitcoin futures market stood at 63.00% and 37.00%, according to the on-chain analytics platform Sigbtc.

CryptoQuant CEO Ju Ki-young predicted that Bitcoin's uptrend has ended based on a number of on-chain data and that Bitcoin will continue its sideways or downward trend for about 6-12 months in the future.

The data attached by Representative Joo is a long-overdue graph of Bitcoin buying and selling. The Bitcoin long-overdue signal data attached by Representative Joo indicated that the selling is currently dominant and that Bitcoin will fall.

In addition, CEO Joo analyzed the 365-day Bitcoin moving average line calculated by applying Bitcoin's 'Real Value versus Market Value(MVRV)', 'Holder Income Status(SOPR)' and 'Net unrealized Net Income(NUPL)'. "All on-chain indicators foreshadow a downtrend," he said. "As liquidity is depleted, Bitcoin whales are selling Bitcoin at low prices."

◇Upward Coin = The cryptocurrency that recorded the largest increase from the previous trading day at 4:30 p.m. on Mar. 18 was Loom Network(LOOM), up about 30%.

Loom Network is a blockchain-based game platform. In order to solve the scalability problem of Ethereum-based DApps, different side chains are operated for each DApp to reduce the overload of the main chain and support large-scale DApp development.

Loom network token(LOOM) is used to host deposits and dapps on the chain.

◇Fear Greed Index = Digital asset fear-greed index provided by Alternative maintains a 'Fear' level with 34 points. The fear phase(20-39) is a phase where cryptocurrency price volatility and trading volume increase, and the price falls. Since there is a high possibility of forming a low point in the short term, one should be careful about buying.

The cryptocurrency relative strength index(RSI) provided by Sigbtc was 43.6, which was in a 'neutral' state. RSI sets the relative strength between the upward and downward pressure of a particular asset price and is an indicator of a measure of over-purchasing and over-selling of a particular asset.

권승원 기자 ksw@blockstreet.co.kr