- Bitcoin short positions worth $164 million were liquidated on Tuesday, December 9. The cascading short squeeze pushed BTC to an intraday high of $94,200, bringing the asset closer to the psychological level of $100,000.
- At the time of writing, the market is partially cooling off: Bitcoin trades around $92,564, still up 2.8% on the day. Altcoins are also recovering: Ethereum (ETH) trades near $3,321 (+7.1%), while Dogecoin (DOGE) is up 5.0%.
The main catalyst for the next market move will be the Federal Reserve’s tone during today’s policy announcement. A 0.25% rate cut is already widely priced in and is unlikely to trigger major volatility on its own.
However, if Fed Chair Jerome Powell signals additional cuts ahead, markets could react sharply. According to Ruslan Lienkha, Chief of Markets at YouHodler, a “hawkish rate cut” scenario is possible:
“I expect the Fed Chair may try to offset the impact of the rate cut with a more hawkish message. Since the decision is mostly priced in, a hawkish tone could increase selling pressure in the already fragile U.S. stock market, which may negatively affect BTC and the broader crypto market.”
According to Lienkha, the rate cut itself has been fully priced in, so a strong bullish reaction in Bitcoin is unlikely.