Goldman Sachs On Bitcoin & The Federal Reserve

The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady at 1.5-1.75% on Wednesday. 

Analysts at Goldman Sachs believe a hawkish surprise could come through in the form of board officials projecting one or two interest-rate hikes in 2020. That could bode well for the dollar. 

The greenback could sell off if policymakers cite high inflation as a prerequisite for a rate hike, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. 

Even so, Fed policy – whether hawkish or dovish – is unlikely to affect the price of bitcoin, which remains an uncorrelated asset, despite the popular narrative that it is a hedge against monetary and fiscal indiscipline. 

In the past, the cryptocurrency has seldom benefited from monetary easing by major central banks.

For instance, the Fed's balance sheet has expanded by more than $290 billion since mid-September. Bitcoin, however, is down roughly 40 percent from the highs above $10,400 registered in mid-September.

The European Central Bank (ECB) cut rates by 10 basis points to - 0.50 percent and announced a fresh bond buying program in early September. Even so, bitcoin registered a monthly drop of 13.5 percent. 

Monetary tightening cycles have also failed to influence bitcoin. For instance, the Fed raised rates nine times between 2015 and 2018, by 0.25 percentage point each time. Despite the rate hikes, the cryptocurrency charted a meteoric rise from $400 to $20,000 in 2.5-years to December 2017.

Many experts still believe unconventional monetary policies will bode well for bitcoin in the long run. 

“Bitcoin is headed towards a unique situation – lower interest rates, more QE, and the [miners' reward] halving in 2020. These three events occurring near the same time should serve as rocket fuel for bitcoin over the next 2–3 years," Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets told CoinDesk in November.