This week’s crypto market faced two typical macro bearish catalysts at the same time: the Federal Reserve’s 25-basis-point rate hike was implemented last week, pushing the target range for the federal funds rate to 3.75%–4.00%, along with the hawkish signals it released afterward; and the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY regulatory bill that the crypto industry had been hoping for. After these two clearly negative pieces of information were absorbed by the market, Bitcoin nonetheless quickly recovered its losses, reclaiming the $80,000 level. ETH and XRP also rallied in tandem, showing price action independent of traditional macro narratives.
In recent years, the crypto market’s negative correlation with U.S. Treasury yields and the U.S. dollar index was a core logic behind how the market priced assets. During a rate-hike cycle, tightening liquidity directly suppresses the valuation of risk assets, and the lack of a regulatory framework further increases institutions’ concerns about allocations. But after this round of bad news was factored in, there was no expected wave of sell-off. On-chain data shows that over the past week, long-term holder addresses—including North American institutional addresses—have continued to accumulate BTC. Some macro funds that had previously positioned for short-duration Treasuries began to modestly increase their allocation to crypto spot ETFs. This indicates that the market’s pricing logic for crypto assets is shifting—no longer solely swayed by changes in Federal Reserve monetary policy.
The core driver of this shift lies in changes to the liquidity structure: over the past two years, the launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs has provided compliant entry channels for institutional capital. Today, the global asset under management of crypto spot ETFs has surpassed one trillion dollars. This capital tends to have a longer holding cycle and will not quickly exit the market due to a single rate hike or a regulatory headline. At the same time, current Federal Reserve rate hikes are nearing the end of the cycle, and market expectations for the terminal rate have already been fully priced in. Even if this time’s remarks are somewhat more hawkish, they have not gone beyond the previously expected range, resulting in limited real impact on liquidity. By contrast, delays in the CLARITY Act have made the market realize that overly stringent crypto regulation is unlikely to land in the near term, and thus regulatory uncertainty has actually decreased.
Of course, this does not mean that macro factors completely disappear from their impact on the crypto market. If, going forward, the Federal Reserve releases hawkish signals beyond expectations, or the U.S. Treasury introduces punitive policies targeting crypto assets, risk assets would still come under pressure. However, the price action in this round of trading has shown that the crypto market is gradually building an independent pricing system, and macro narratives’ authority to explain prices is being diluted. For market participants, what needs attention is no longer the short-term shock from a single rate hike or a regulatory headline, but rather on-chain and industry indicators such as spot ETF net inflows and outflows, as well as changes in holdings by long-term on-chain holders.