Traders Turn Bearish on Bitcoin, Ethereum After Fed

Traders increased bearish bets on Bitcoin and Ethereum after Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh adopted a hawkish tone at his first Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday. Both coins slipped about 5%, trading recently around $62,499 for Bitcoin and $1,682 for Ethereum, while prediction markets shifted toward lower near-term price targets.

At the FOMC meeting, policymakers left the federal funds rate unchanged. Market pricing moved to reflect a reduced chance of rate cuts this year and into 2026: a platform that tracks futures prices shows roughly an 80% probability of no rate cuts in 2026. The CME FedWatch tool showed traders increasing the likelihood of a rate hike by the end of the year.

Price moves and futures repricing coincided with heavier activity on prediction markets that let users bet on whether an asset will next reach a higher or lower target. On Myriad’s “Pump or Dump” markets, the probability assigned to Bitcoin falling to $55,000 rose by more than 10% in the last 24 hours and now stands at about 72% that BTC will hit $55,000 before a larger rise to $84,000.

For Ethereum, odds that the token will reach $1,500 before climbing to $3,000 have climbed to about 83%, an increase of roughly 4% in the past day and more than 23% over the last month. At current prices, ETH sits about 12% above the $1,500 marker and would require roughly a 78% gain to reach $3,000.

Analysts at Bitfire Research described Bitcoin’s current level as a “high-value entry window.” The comment indicates some market participants view the price dip as an opportunity to buy despite the rise in bearish bets on prediction markets.

Prediction markets such as Myriad and Polymarket assign probabilities to specific price outcomes and provide one measure of trader expectations. Combined with interest-rate futures data summarized by CME FedWatch, those markets show increased odds of near-term downside for major cryptocurrencies after the Fed chair’s remarks.