Crypto Market On Alert As This Week’s Fed Decision Isn’t Just About Rates

Crypto markets head into this week’s Federal Reserve meeting focused less on rate cut and more on whether Jerome Powell quietly declares the start of quantitative easing (QE). The key question on Wednesday for macro-sensitive traders is whether the Fed shifts into a bill-heavy “reserve management” regime that starts rebuilding dollar liquidity, even if it refuses to call it QE. Futures markets suggest the rate decision itself is largely a foregone conclusion. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, traders are assigning roughly 87.2% odds to a 0.25 percentage point cut, underscoring that the real uncertainty is not about the size of the move, but about what the Fed signals on reserves, T-bill purchases and the future path of its balance sheet. Former New York Fed repo specialist and current Bank of America strategist Mark Cabana has become the focal point of that debate. His latest client note argues that Powell is poised to announce a program of roughly 45 billion dollars in monthly Treas