Just hours before the Federal Reserve was due to announce its latest interest rate decision, a transaction on the level of a whale pulled 650 BTC — worth $75.6 million — out of Coinbase Prime and into a new wallet with no prior activity, as per Whale Alert.
Blockchain data shows that the coins came directly from a Coinbase hot wallet and are now sitting in the new address, which, as of this morning, holds no other balances.
This transaction occurs on the same day that Powell and the Fed are expected to cut rates for the first time in months. Markets are already pricing in a 25 b.p. move, while some banks are calling for an even deeper cut that could bring borrowing costs down to 3.50-3.75% by the end of the year.
Bitcoin has been trading higher in anticipation of the decision, climbing back toward $117,000 after spending much of early September below $112,000.
Gold touched a record high of almost $3,700 per ounce before profit-taking dragged it down, demonstrating that investors are moving into hedges while bond yields are pricing in cuts. The two-year yield is around 3.56%, and the ten-year yield is near 4.06%.
Bullish or bearish?
The Coinbase withdrawal is not just a random shuffling of coins; removing $75 million worth of BTC from an exchange usually indicates that someone is preparing to hold rather than sell, a move that traders often interpret as bullish.
However, the scale and timing, right before the Fed decision, leaves room for doubt; large transfers like this could easily be part of a staged setup, either to build confidence or to unsettle order books.
With liquidity across venues still low, a single player has the power to influence short-term sentiment, which makes today's Fed signal even more important.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team