Bitcoin Moves Sideways Ahead of Fed Rate Announcement

Fed Release Dot Plot of Results and Interest Rate on Mar. 19
Cryptocurrency Remains Flat...Minority Altcoins Up More Than 5%
Bernstein, Cathie Wood "BTC, The Upside Is Still Not Over"

While the U.S. Federal Reserve(Fed) announced its benchmark interest rate, the cryptocurrency market, including Bitcoin(BTC), went sideways on Mar. 19.

The Fed held regular meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee and the Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC) in March to decide monetary policy. The Fed will also release a dot chart showing the results of the meeting and interest rate forecasts at 2 p.m. on Mar. 19(local time).

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets went sideways ahead of the Fed's interest rate announcement, which will have a direct impact on the asset market.

In particular, investors are paying attention to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference to provide clues on whether to cut interest rates in the future. As a result, the cryptocurrency market remained at the same price as the previous day on the 19th. "Light" altcoins with low market capitalization recorded a rise of more than 5%.

◇Bitcoin = Bitcoin price is $83,345 at 4:30 p.m. on Mar. 19, 2025. The Bitcoin share(dominance) was 61.59%.

The long(up) and short(down) betting ratios in the Bitcoin futures market stood at 62.59% and 37.41%, according to the on-chain analytics platform Sigbtc.

Despite Bitcoin's recent underperformance, experts have argued for optimism about Bitcoin from a long-term perspective.

Investment firm Bernstein said in a report, "The Bitcoin market is not at the peak of the bull market, but at the beginning of the market. Bitcoin will exceed $100,000 in this cycle." Furthermore, it analyzed that it could reach $200,000 by the end of this year.

However, he added that there is a possibility that the upward cycle may be postponed until next year if macroeconomic deterioration or changes in international circumstances occur.

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, dubbed "Money Tree Sister," also expressed a positive outlook for Bitcoin. "We think we're still on an uptrend and deregulation in the U.S. will drive the inflow of institutional investors," Cathy Wood told Bloomberg. He also stressed that including Bitcoin in the portfolio will increase the overall risk-adjusted return.

Cathie Wood also predicted that if inflation is lower than expected, there will be two to three rate cuts this year, which will also have a positive impact on the Bitcoin market.

◇Upward Coin = The cryptocurrency that recorded the largest increase from the previous trading day at 4:30 p.m. on Mar. 19 was Stepen(GMT), up about 9%.

Stepen is an M2E service project. The Stepen project pays cryptocurrency to users who wear non-fungible tokens(NFTs) sold in their own markets and exercise outdoors with GPS signals. It is also possible to raise the level of NFT sneakers with the acquired cryptocurrency, produce new sneakers, and monetize them. The cryptocurrency used in the Stepen project is a Stepen Token and is listed on Binance, an overseas cryptocurrency exchange.

◇Fear Greed Index = Digital asset fear-greed index provided by Alternative maintains a 'Fear' level with 32 points. The fear stage(20-39) is a stage 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 50.1, 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