The short version
- Fed meeting odds point to a hold on October 28: Kalshi traders price it at 93%, after CME FedWatch hike odds fell from 16% to 8% in a day.
- It matters because the Fed raised rates to 3.75–4.00% in September, and Warsh says he doesn’t move on single data points, so a hawkish tone can still hit bitcoin.
- The crew is watching BTC at $81,800 between $80,000 support and $84,800 resistance, and whether Warsh keeps December’s 72% hike odds alive.
The Fed meeting next week looked like a coin flip a month ago, and now the market barely thinks about a hike. On Thursday the odds of a rate hike on October 28 fell to 8% from 16% a day earlier on the CME FedWatch tool. On Kalshi, traders now price a hold at 93%.
Bitcoin didn’t celebrate. BTC USD trades at $81,800 at the time of writing, after a round trip from nearly $85,000 on Wednesday down to $80,940. So if a hold is a done deal, why should crypto traders care about this one? Because the decision is the easy part. What Kevin Warsh says about December is not.
This is the Fed’s own clip of Warsh opening the September press conference, the day it raised rates for the first time since 2023:
Chairman Warsh reads opening statement at the #FOMC press conference on September 16, 2026: youtube.com/shorts/CLQEasK…
When Is the Fed Meeting, and What Are Traders Expecting?
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets on October 27 and 28, and the statement comes out at 2:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, with Warsh’s press conference half an hour later. There are no new rate projections this time. Those only come at the December meeting.
The starting point is a rate of 3.75% to 4.00%. The Fed raised it by a quarter point on September 16 in a 12 to 0 vote, after holding all year. At the time, 16 of 18 officials expected at least one more hike before the year is out.
Then the data turned. The September jobs report showed only 29,000 new jobs, and unemployment rose to 4.2%. Rate hike odds for October collapsed. Thursday’s jobless claims came in at 194,000, still very low, and the odds kept falling anyway. For context, Kalshi still prices a 72% chance of a hike on December 9.
In other words, the market has moved the next hike, not cancelled it.
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Three Ways the Fed Meeting Can Go
The decision is close to certain, but the message isn’t. These are the three outcomes worth planning for:
- A plain hold. Rates stay at 3.75% to 4.00% and the statement keeps the door open without pushing. This is what the 93% is priced for, so it should move little on its own.
- A hawkish hold. Rates stay put, but Warsh makes clear December is live, or a few officials dissent in favour of a hike, as three did in July. That would lift December odds back up, and risk assets usually don’t like it.
- A surprise hike. The 6% outcome. Nobody is positioned for it, so it would likely hit bitcoin hardest of the three.
The hawkish hold is the one to take seriously, because Warsh has told everyone how he thinks. “I’m not a data-point-dependent guy,” he said in September. One soft jobs report may matter less to him than to the traders who just priced out a hike. September inflation came in at 3.7%, up from 3.4% in August, and he has called inflation “too high” for “too long”.
How Did Bitcoin React to Past Fed Meetings?
Not the way most people guess. Here is every Fed meeting this year, with BTC’s Binance daily close on decision day and seven days later:
| Meeting | Decision | BTC that day | 7 days later | Move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 28 | Hold at 3.50–3.75% | $89,300 | $73,166 | −18.1% |
| March 18 | Hold | $71,247 | $71,337 | +0.1% |
| April 29 | Hold | $75,780 | $81,447 | +7.5% |
| June 17 | Hold | $64,509 | $61,078 | −5.3% |
| July 29 | Hold, three votes for a hike | $63,984 | $64,665 | +1.1% |
| September 16 | Hike to 3.75–4.00% | $76,206 | $84,398 | +10.7% |
The only hike of the year came with bitcoin’s best week after a meeting. BTC ran 13.7% in five days, up to $86,620 on September 21. The hike was expected, and the uncertainty around it was gone. The five holds gave anything from minus 18% to plus 7.5%. The Fed was not the only thing moving bitcoin in those weeks, so treat the table as a range of possible reactions.
What it does show: the decision itself rarely sets the direction. The surprise does, and the tone that comes with it.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: Can BTC Hold $80,000 Into the Fed Meeting?
For now, yes, but with very little room. Bitcoin sits at $81,800, just above its 50-day exponential moving average (EMA), a trend line that weights recent prices more, at $80,878. The 200-day EMA is far below at $76,230.
The month-long range does most of the work in any Bitcoin price analysis right now. Bitcoin was rejected near $84,800 on Wednesday and has bounced off the $80,000 area three times in October, with the lowest wick at $79,800 on October 15.
- In the bull case, a plain hold and a calm Warsh send BTC back to $84,800, and a daily close above it opens the October high at $87,220.
- In the base case, the Fed meeting changes nothing and bitcoin keeps chopping between $80,000 and $84,800.
- In the bear case, a hawkish hold or a surprise hike breaks $80,000, and the next stop is the September breakout zone near $76,000, where the 200-day EMA sits.
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Fed days are also liquidation days. Bitcoin can swing both ways in the minutes after 2:00 p.m. and again during the press conference, so leverage that survives a normal week may not survive Wednesday afternoon. Whatever the Fed does, the number that decides the next move is $80,000.
On the climb since 2017. Trades futures and reads onchain data. Automates the boring parts.
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