Bitcoin has recently seen impressive price action, briefly climbing to a six-week high of approximately $76,000 on March 17 before settling back to around $74,000. This movement comes as traders now eagerly await the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, scheduled for Wednesday.
Market participants are widely expecting the Fed to maintain benchmark interest rates in the range of 3.50% to 3.75%. While this expectation poses no surprises, all eyes are on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s accompanying remarks regarding inflation and potential future rate cuts.
Analysts from Bitfinex noted a significant risk posed by a “hot” Producer Price Index reading combined with a hawkish stance from Powell. Such a scenario could have adverse effects, particularly for equities and risk assets—including cryptocurrencies.
Vetle Lunde, the head of research at K33, stated that the market is increasingly anticipating a prolonged period of unchanged rates. The probability that rates will remain steady through July has notably surged to over 60%, compared to just 22% in the previous month.
Data-Driven Whale Activity and ETF Growth
On-chain insights from Santiment reveal that wallets holding between 100 and 100,000 BTC collectively acquired approximately 30,000 BTC in the first 16 days of March, translating to a whopping $2.1 billion worth of purchases.
Moreover, Bitcoin ETFs have exhibited a robust trend, reporting six consecutive days of positive net inflows that amounted to nearly $963 million during this period. This trend signals a growing appetite for Bitcoin among institutional investors.
The Fear and Greed Index, maintained by CoinMarketCap, has transitioned into “Neutral” territory, a clear improvement from its recent low reading of 5 just a month ago—suggesting a shifting sentiment among traders.
Short liquidations within the cryptocurrency market surpassed $1 billion over the past week, with recent price surges resulting in approximately $290 million in liquidated short positions.
Despite the overall bullish sentiment, there are signs of potential selling pressure. According to CryptoQuant’s head of research, Julio Moreno, Bitcoin inflows to exchanges spiked to 6,100 BTC on March 16—marking the highest level since February 20.
An astonishing 63% of these inflows were categorized as large deposits, the highest proportion since mid-October 2025. Historically, spikes in exchange deposits have been associated with increased selling pressure in the market.
Moreno highlighted $75,000 as a pivotal resistance level. He explained that this is aligned with the lower bounds of the on-chain Realized Price, which has historically acted as resistance during bear markets. Bitcoin attempted to breach this level three times on Coinbase within a 24-hour timeframe but failed to break through.
The current Realized Price for active traders hovers around $84,700, reinforcing the importance of observing this critical threshold.
