Will a Fed Hold Ease Bitcoin Pressure as Hike Bets Rise Toward December?

FOMC Polymarket betting odds show traders pricing a 73% chance that the Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged at its October 27–28 meeting, against 27% for a 25-basis-point hike.

The odds come from Polymarket's October contract, which has traded more than $41.5 million in volume. They are a market-implied probability, not a poll or an official Fed forecast, and they have moved quickly. An earlier snapshot taken at 07:53 UTC on October 15 showed a 75.5% chance of a hold, and hotter inflation data has arrived since.

The Kobeissi Letter reported that September PPI inflation rose to 6.3% against expectations of 5.3%, with core PPI at 5.0% against 4.4%, and that rate-hike odds were climbing on the news.

For Bitcoin traders, the odds put a number on one near-term macro risk: whether the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision changes borrowing costs.

Rates shape Treasury yields, the dollar and appetite for risk assets, but the contract does not show who is trading it or how BTC will react.

What Do the FOMC Polymarket Betting Odds Measure?

The contract tracks the change in the upper bound of the target federal funds rate compared with its level before the October meeting. Besides a hold and a 25-basis-point hike, the listed outcomes include a hike of 50 basis points or more and cuts of 25 or 50 basis points or more, all of which are priced below 1%. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. If a decision does not match a listed outcome, the market rules round the change up to the nearest 25 basis points.