At the March 20 Federal Reserve meeting, interest rates were maintained at 4.25 - 4.5%, with the dot plot indicating expectations of two rate cuts in 2025 and two rate cuts in 2026, each by 25 basis points. Beginning in April, the pace of balance sheet reduction will slow, reducing the scale of Treasury bonds from $25 billion to $5 billion. Powell stated that the baseline forecast is that inflation will be temporary, and the Federal Reserve needs to take a wait-and-see approach based on data. Slowing the balance sheet reduction is a technical adjustment, and the Fed is at a stage where it can either cut rates or maintain the current policy.

Returning to the point:

Missouri BTC Reserve Bill HB1217 has been submitted to the House Special Committee on Governmental Affairs. This is one of the slower-moving state-level strategic BTC reserve (SBR) bills, now entering the committee stage six weeks after its introduction. The US stock exchanges Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are pushing for all-day trading services, applying for five or even seven days a week to meet global investor demand. Nasdaq's head of U.S. equities and ETF trading, Giang Bui, stated at the New York Digital Assets Summit that the market is moving in this direction, as they have become accustomed to 24/7 cryptocurrency trading. Nasdaq has begun communicating with regulators, while the NYSE has received approval to extend trading hours. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a statement regarding certain proof-of-work mining activities, asserting that individual and collective (so-called proof-of-work types) mining activities are not considered securities trading. According to Coinmarketcap data, the altcoin season index recently hit a low of 13, the lowest level since September 3, 2024, and has since rebounded to 21, still significantly down from the February average of 43 points. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether was the seventh-largest buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds in 2024, purchasing a total of $33.1 billion in U.S. debt. On March 21, the cryptocurrency fear and greed index dropped to 31, with last week's average at 27, indicating that market sentiment remains in a state of 'fear.'

ETH 153rd ACDC meeting: Developers confirmed once again that the newly launched Hoodi testnet will undergo an upgrade on March 26; developers agreed to postpone the mainnet date for Pectra. ai_9684xtpa data: In 2015, an ancient whale holding 1 million ETH sent 10,000 ETH to address 0x7d6...841B4, and currently, its five addresses still hold 215,008 ETH, with a cost as low as $0.31. QCP stated that the Federal Reserve meeting provided a long-awaited catalyst for the market, as the Fed decided to begin reducing its 'quantitative tightening' plan starting in April. The market interpreted this as an indirect rate cut, reinforcing expectations that the Fed would begin easing policy as early as June. The market expects three rate cuts in 2025, in June, September, and December. New bond king Jeffrey Gundlach stated that the probability of a U.S. recession over the next few quarters is between 50% and 60%, and the U.S. economy is currently in a stable state, potentially moving towards quantitative easing. He advised U.S. investors to stay away from U.S. securities, recommending that investors with dollar-based portfolios reduce their reliance on the U.S. market, emphasizing the strong performance of gold, BTC, and other physical assets. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes indicated that a favorable sign for BTC is that the U.S. bank credit supply index is rising, which does not mean the sell-off has ended, but the market trend is increasingly bullish.

On March 20, U.S. BTC spot ETF inflows reached $165.7 million, marking five consecutive days of net inflows. Among them, BlackRock's IBIT had a net inflow of $172.1 million. On March 20, the U.S. ETH spot ETF saw an outflow of $12.5 million. According to DefiLlama data, the current total market capitalization of stablecoins has reached $230.45 billion, increasing by $2.3 billion over the past seven days. The NYSE submitted a proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow Bitwise ETH ETF to stake. BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, stated that without staking, the ETF appears less perfect, and the potential evolution of the ETH ETF has entered the next stage. If these issues can be resolved, a significant leap could occur. At the Federal Reserve's meeting on March 20, interest rates were kept unchanged at 4.25 - 4.5%, and the dot plot indicated expectations of two rate cuts in 2025 and two rate cuts in 2026, each by 25 basis points. The Fed significantly lowered its GDP growth forecast for the U.S. in 2025 from 2.1% to 1.7% and slightly raised the unemployment rate forecast for this year to 4.4%. The balance sheet reduction policy will begin to slow down in April, reducing the scale of Treasury bonds from $25 billion to $5 billion, while maintaining MBS at $35 billion.

Powell stated at the press conference that the Federal Reserve needs to take a wait-and-see approach based on data and does not urgently need to adjust policy, as it is in a position to either cut rates or maintain the current policy; the baseline forecast is that inflation will be temporary, closely monitoring signs of economic weakness. If the labor market weakens, policy could be loosened if necessary; slowing the balance sheet reduction is a technical adjustment, meaning a slower pace but lasting longer. Currently, there are no plans to slow down the reduction of MBS, leaning towards excluding MBS from the balance sheet. Interest rate futures show that the probability of the Federal Reserve resuming rate cuts at the June meeting has risen to 64%, with a total cumulative rate cut of 65 basis points expected for the year, up about 10 basis points from before the decision. JPMorgan Asset Management Chief Michelle noted that the market breathed a sigh of relief as the Federal Reserve did not rush to conclusions. Analyst Matthias Scheiber indicated that the economy may continue to weaken, and the Federal Reserve may need to cut rates more aggressively than expected, with the next potential window for rate cuts being in May. Arthur Hayes stated that Powell has indicated that quantitative tightening (QT) will essentially end on April 1. The market now needs a real bullish signal, whether that be a Supplementary Leverage Ratio (SLR) exemption or a restart of quantitative easing (QE). BTC at $77,000 may be the bottom, but there could be more downside before Powell pivots to a dovish stance. Analyst Jamie Coutts noted that historically, the Fed's shift could lay the groundwork for BTC to rise within the next 90 days, potentially reaching an all-time high before the end of the second quarter. Trump, at a cryptocurrency conference, called on Congress to pass landmark legislation to establish simple, rational rules for stablecoins and market structure.

In this Federal Reserve meeting, Powell leaned dovish, beginning to slow down the balance sheet reduction in April, without committing to a rate cut. The Fed's dot plot indicates a long-term neutral rate of 3.0%, which still has room to decrease from the current 4.25 - 4.5%. The current uncertainty mainly stems from Trump's tariff actions. (U.S. stock indices have experienced multiple waterfall declines due to Trump's adverse tariff actions, with tariffs to be implemented on April 2, which may cause fluctuations in the market at that time.) The three potential months for Fed rate cuts may be June, September, and December, with one cut in each of the second, third, and fourth quarters, leading to a gradual warming of market sentiment during this period. (In addition, Bn has initiated listing and delisting voting; listing voting is not commented on, while delisting voting may be uncomfortable since many may hold these coins, and delisting means a loss. From the perspective of cutting off garbage coins, assuming 90% can be delisted (unrealistic), the bull market could be better. Many say this bull market is different from 2017 and 2021, largely due to the excessive number of listed coins, dispersing the market (more 'scissors' waiting in line than 'leeks'), with Trump's meme coins having a market value in the hundreds of billions in early 2025. Before 2017, mainstream platforms only had BTC available for trading, which concentrated the momentum without dispersion, making it relatively easier, while from 2021 to 2025, the number of meme coins expanded to 5-6 figures on-chain/down-chain.) The market experienced a broad rally driven by last year's fourth-quarter rate cuts; this year's first quarter saw a pause in rate cuts, leading to a slump; it is now transitioning to the next stage of recovery with rate cuts, as the discussion of balance sheet reduction slowing in April has already been placed on the Federal Reserve's table.