Bitcoin steadies above $64,000 as crypto looks to Fed interest-rate decision — SkimNews
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- Bitcoin rose 0.75% to $64,328, recovering some of Tuesday's losses after a volatile 48-hour stretch that saw it spike to $66,700 before crashing to $62,400 amid a rout in South Korean stocks.
- The Federal Reserve faces a rate decision later Wednesday with traders pricing in a 35% probability of a hike — the first in three years — driven by 4.1% inflation, though a pause in Iran-U.S. hostilities has trimmed oil prices and slightly reduced hike odds.
- Crypto derivatives show steady positioning ahead of the meeting, with open interest holding near $113 billion and 24-hour volume up 10% to $205 billion, while the taker long-short ratio sits in near-perfect balance.
- Bitcoin options on Deribit saw puts dominate 24-hour volume at $62,000, $60,000, and $54,000 strikes, signaling hedging for downside, while ETH options saw calls top the list — a divergence between the two.
- UNI bucked the broader trend with open interest climbing to 68.53 million tokens (the highest since July 13) after BlackRock's decision to bring its tokenized Treasury fund to the decentralized exchange, validating the token's 5% upswing.
- Jupiter (JUP) led DeFi gains at 5.79%, while AI token FET fell 4.60% on the day and 6.78% over 24 hours, continuing to unwind last month's sector rally, and PUMP shed 5.14% as retail enthusiasm faded.
- Monero (XMR) rose 1.82% to $347, quietly extending a privacy-coin outperformance streak that has gone largely unnoticed amid broader market turbulence.
Why it matters: The 35% market-implied probability of a Fed rate hike — unusually high for a decision day — combined with bitcoin and ether 30-day implied volatility sitting near recent lows reveals a disconnect: options traders aren't pricing tail risk even though rate-hike odds remain elevated, leaving leveraged positions exposed if the Fed surprises.
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