At the just-concluded Jackson Hole Global Central Bankers Conference, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller delivered remarks reiterating that inflation must be brought back to the 2% target level, releasing a clear hawkish signal. Deutsche Bank subsequently adjusted its expectations quickly, forecasting that the Fed will raise rates by 25 basis points in September and again in December. CME’s rate-watching tool shows that, as of December, the probability of cumulative rate hikes of at least 50 basis points surged to 51% from 29% the previous day; the probability of a single 25-basis-point hike is 38%; and the probability of holding rates unchanged has dropped sharply to 11%. The entire interest-rate derivatives market is undergoing a round of intense repricing.

Judging from the technical side and macro pricing logic, the sharp swings in this yield curve are not just a reset of near-term expectations, but also reflects the market digesting the certainty of the Fed’s policy terminal point. Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economist at Allianz, noted that the U.S. Treasury yield curve is showing a clear flattening trend: the spread between the 2-year and 10-year yields has narrowed by about 7 basis points, and the spread between the 2-year and 30-year yields has narrowed by about 10 basis points. Long-end yields staying restrained suggests that institutional investors still place a high level of confidence in the Fed’s long-term credibility in combating inflation. This kind of policy transparency that effectively removes negative surprises often signals that the bottom range for macro liquidity has likely been established.

As a result, traditional safe-haven assets saw a short-term technical pullback. Spot gold fell 3% during the day to $4,463.24 per ounce; holdings in the world’s largest gold ETF, SPDR Gold Trust, declined by 4.279 tons in a single day to 1,042.357 tons, indicating that the safe-haven premium is being re-evaluated. Meanwhile, on the commodities and energy front, expectations that the U.S. will cooperate with Venezuela on more than 65 billion barrels of oil have improved the supply outlook. Easing upward inflation pressure helps push down real borrowing costs over the medium to long term, paving the way for a liquidity rebound for risk assets after digesting the pain of rate hikes.

For the crypto market, this early release of macro expectations is actually an excellent signal that risk appetite is bottoming out. As the probability of rate hikes has been fully Price-in in the short term and panic sentiment has cleared from the trading screen, if key assets such as $BTC can complete a pullback and stabilize within key support zones, the market can quickly shift from defense to offense. Once the Fed’s rate-hike path becomes fully clear, marginal liquidity leaving safe-haven assets (such as gold) is likely to accelerate back into crypto sectors with higher elasticity and stronger anti-inflation characteristics, providing ample momentum to build a new round of structural bull market advance. 📈

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