#美SEC促进加密资产创新监管框架 The current market sentiment is so cold it stings, but there's a big event coming this week—the Federal Reserve FOMC meeting.

On the surface, a 25 basis point rate hike is a done deal, but the real battle hasn't started yet. The known factors have long been priced in by the market. The real questions lie elsewhere: What will next year’s rate path look like? How will the dot plot change? Will balance sheet reduction continue? What will Powell say?

Remember the end of last year? Everyone was expecting a rate-cutting cycle, and with the excitement from Trump’s election win, the market almost started “celebrating early.” But then Powell poured cold water on everything with just one sentence.

The market went from “restless” to “total collapse” in an instant. What was the culprit? His stance on rate cuts in 2025—the dot plot looked fine, showing just two rate cuts, but people were actually betting on four cuts for the whole year. The huge gap between imagination and reality is often the real reason behind major market swings.

So Powell’s wording this time is especially critical. Here’s a detail: After the new chair takes over, even if there’s no aggressive rate cutting, it’s likely they’ll align more closely with Trump’s policies and gradually push monetary policy toward genuine easing.

But here’s the question—will this December meeting and the dot plot once again douse the market with “cold water”?

If the dot plot suggests two rate cuts but four actually happen, and this play is repeated, you can imagine how bad market sentiment will get. Frankly, the Fed no longer has such strong confidence. Once the economy starts to weaken, they’ll have to make a binary choice: stubbornly stick to the inflation target and risk a recession, or turn to support growth and give next year’s market a shot in the arm. No matter what they choose, the subsequent trend will be deeply affected.

There’s another thing to watch out for—the possibility of balance sheet expansion. Not many people are discussing this now, but if expectations for it emerge, the liquidity environment could significantly improve, which would become a bullish factor for the market.

This current gloom in the market actually gives us a chance to look for structural opportunities. $BTC $ETH