Bitcoin Price Steady on Bank of Japan Interest Rate Decision as Fed Speech Looms

The Bitcoin price was placid early Wednesday after the Bank of Japan decided “by unanimous vote” to leave its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5%.  Now, traders are waiting to see if the Federal Reserve will do the same.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to deliver his remarks today at 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin had gained 1.7% on the day and was changing hands for roughly $83,765, according to CoinGecko data.

But it’s still the case that not much BTC is changing hands at all. Trading volume over the past 24 hours was $25 billion—a far cry from the $42 billion daily volume average it saw last week.

Users of decentralized prediction market MYRIAD, launched by Decrypt‘s parent company DASTAN, are confident that Bitcoin will manage to maintain this price level through the weekend—with over 68% expecting that Bitcoin will still be above $83,000 by the end of the week, up from 52% at the start of the day.

Meanwhile, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index has lost 2 points since yesterday, leaving it stuck in “Fear.” It had been coasting along in “Neutral” territory as recently as last month. Since the start of the year, the index—which ranges from 0 for extreme fear to 100 for extreme greed—has reached as high as 84 two days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. But it’s experienced a bumpy descent since then as geopolitical tensions and global trade tirades have plagued markets.

Traders are waiting to see whether Powell will offer any hope of a rate cut later this year. They seem to have already given up hope that he will announce a surprise rate cut later today, with 99% of traders expecting the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

But BRN analyst Valentin Fournier thinks they’re looking to DC for a different reason—and perhaps, with more optimism.

“The dominant narrative driving this cycle is Bitcoin accumulation at a national level,” he wrote in a market note Wednesday. “While immediate actions are awaited, their potential impact is expected to be sudden and significant.”

This comes after Bo Hines, executive director of the Presidential Working Group on Digital Assets, told several participants at a closed-door roundtable hosted by the Bitcoin Policy Institute on last week that the White House is intent on acquiring as much Bitcoin as it can.