Crypto Daybook Americas: Memecoins Take Off on Tron While Bitcoin Looks to FOMC

  • March 19, 2025
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Crypto Daybook Americas: Memecoins Take Off on Tron While Bitcoin Looks to FOMC

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Cryptocurrency prices are seeing a slight recovery from Tuesday's decline with bitcoin (BTC) gaining 0.5% and the broader CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) advancing 0.8% in the last 24 hours.

The drop came before the Federal Reserve’s policy decision due later today. Interest rates are forecast to remain unchanged at 4.25%-4.5%, so investors will instead be focused on macro outlook with a potential end to quantitative tightening (QT) in sight.

Since mid-2022, the Fed has been slowly shrinking its balance sheet, which inflated to $9 trillion to support the economy during the COVID era. An earlier-than-expected end to quantitative tightening, which has so far reduced the Fed’s balance sheet to $6.7 trillion, could boost risk assets like bitcoin.

An end to QT would see the Fed stop withdrawing liquidity from the market, potentially weakening the dollar and making crypto assets more attractive. Traders on prediction market Polymarket are essentially certain an end to QT will be announced before May.

Another boost for risk assets came from the Bank of Japan (BOJ), which held its benchmark interest rate unchanged, despite growing inflation in the country. The decision keeps Japanese bond yields steady, limiting the attractiveness of these assets and attracting less capital to traditional markets. Still bitcoin failed to respond .

Bitcoin’s appeal as an alternative store of value has been seeing growing recognition. The number of public companies buying bitcoin has more than doubled to 80 from 33 in just two years, according to data from River . Strategy, the largest corporate holder of BTC, has even detailed plans to sell $500 million in preferred stock to buy more.

Yet, growing tariffs threats have reignited inflationary risks as economic growth stagnates. The result could be stagflation, a situation that wouldn’t please market participants. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

March 20: Pascal hard fork network upgrade goes live on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) mainnet.

March 21, 1:00 p.m.: The SEC’s Crypto Task Force hosts a roundtable , open to the public , that will focus on the definition of a security.

March 24 (before market open): Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) will join the S&P SmallCap 600 index .

March 24, 11:00 a.m.: Bugis network upgrade goes live on Enjin Matrixchain mainnet.

March 25: The Mimir upgrade goes live on Chromia (CHR) mainnet.

Macro

March 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Federal Reserve announces its interest-rate decision. The FOMC press conference is likely to be live-streamed 30 minutes later.

OK