Bitcoin traded below $65,000 on Wednesday as market participants prepared for the Federal Reserve’s latest interest-rate announcement, a decision that historically tends to trigger sharp directional moves in crypto markets.
According to reporting by CoinTelegraph, intraday lows touched $64,782 on Bitstamp, pushing the world’s largest cryptocurrency toward a critical support level that traders say could determine the trajectory through June.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was set to announce its decision at 2pm Eastern time, with the stakes heightened by the fact that Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chair, would be holding his first press conference in the role. Market observers have flagged growing pressure on Warsh to pursue rate cuts despite persistent inflation concerns, particularly in light of recent geopolitical developments.
Historical Pattern Shows Bitcoin Weakness on FOMC Days
Trader Killa flagged a troubling historical precedent for Bitcoin holders. In an analysis shared on X, Killa noted that while Bitcoin typically builds bullish momentum into Fed decisions, the actual announcements have historically prompted bearish reactions far more often than rallies.
“If recent history is any indication, we have generated far more bearish reactions than bullish ones,” Killa wrote, citing price action around previous FOMC meetings marked on longer-term charts.
The warning reflected a broader market dynamic: Bitcoin has spent the past 18 months testing the hypothesis that crypto assets behave as inflation hedges during uncertain monetary policy regimes. Yet the pattern suggests that in the immediate aftermath of Fed decisions, traders often lock in gains or reassess risk positioning, regardless of whether the outcome was hawkish or dovish.
$64,000 Becomes the Line in the Sand
Killa emphasized that holding the $64,000 level was now “essential” for maintaining bullish structure. If Bitcoin closes below that support, the trader warned, a retest of the $60,000 lows becomes a material risk—a move that would erase roughly $5,000 in value and break a key psychological floor for longer-term holders.
“We need to maintain bullish market structure from here,” Killa wrote. The urgency in that phrasing reflects how thin support becomes once major levels break in volatile sessions.
On Tuesday, Bitcoin had already shed momentum even as equities rallied on optimism around Iran de-escalation. Subdued demand above $67,000 suggested that institutional buyers remained cautious ahead of the Fed announcement, preferring to sit on hands rather than chase into a potentially unstable price zone.
Bears Target $55,000 as Next Major Downside
Not all participants expected the bounce to hold. Niels, a cofounder at marketing agency STABL, acknowledged Bitcoin could find “some strength” around the FOMC event itself, but predicted the longer-term direction remains south.
“IMO, Bitcoin could show some strength but eventually it’s going to $55,000,” Niels told followers, sketching a downside target that would represent a 13% decline from Wednesday’s levels.
That bearish view gained some traction among technical analysts who see the recent rally as a bear-market bounce rather than the start of a sustained recovery. A move to $55,000 would erase gains back to early January levels and test whether the foundation for a true bull market had been laid.
One Bright Spot: The Bull Market Support Band
A contrarian view came from analytics account Cryptic Trades, which saw the present weakness as a tactical pullback rather than a failure of the bull case. Cryptic Trades identified two key moving averages on the daily Bitcoin chart that together form what traders call the “bull market support band”—a zone that has historically proven sticky during corrections.
Bitcoin has already rejected at those levels, according to the analysis. If that holds through the FOMC decision, Cryptic Trades predicted “the next big leg up is coming.”
That optimism hinges entirely on whether $64,000 proves to be genuine support or merely a speed bump on the way to lower levels. History suggests caution is warranted around Fed days, but technicians argue that the underlying structure remains intact for now.