Markets pivot to September Fed rate hike: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

Bitcoin (BTC) heads into September still battling key resistance as markets flip hawkish on Federal Reserve policy.

Key points:

• Markets see a 60% chance of the Fed hiking interest rates in September, with jobs data due this week.
• Oil has experienced renewed volatility amid fresh US strikes on Iran and an unprecedented US-Venezuela oil-supply deal.
• Bitcoin remains under a crucial patch of resistance below $86,000 heading into the August monthly candle close.

September rate hike bets return after Jackson Hole

The coming week will bring the release of multiple US employment indexes, each likely to shape expectations for policy changes from the Federal Reserve.

The Fed is already in the spotlight after last week’s Jackson Hole economic symposium, which featured its first keynote speech from new chair Kevin Warsh. Warsh remained characteristically tight-lipped on policy cues, describing forward guidance — a fixture of Fed PR for decades — as having “overstayed its welcome.”

On inflation, Warsh described current data as too high, despite July’s lower-than-expected results for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index.

“Each of these broad inflation measures have fallen significantly from their highs of a few years ago, but progress through the past couple of years has been more modest, and while this summer’s PCE and CPI readings were better than expected, they do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved,” he said.