Bitcoin After Every Fed Decision Since 2020: What BTC Did the Day, the Week and the Month After Cuts, Hikes and Holds

Bitcoin has moved an average of 2.8% on the 55 days the Federal Reserve has announced a rate decision since 2020, against 2.1% on an ordinary day, and more than a third of those decision days moved it over 3%. The direction is the surprise. After the Fed's eight cuts, Bitcoin was down on the day and down a week later more often than not (median week minus 4.7%). After its twelve hikes it rose on the day three times in four, then gave it back over the week. The 35 holds were the quietest on the day and the best a month out. The decision-day move pointed the same way as the following week only 33 times in 55, which is close to a coin flip.

Those are the numbers from every Fed decision since January 2020, lined up against Bitcoin's daily closes, with the Fed's October 28 decision two days away. The full table of all 55 meetings is at the bottom. What follows is the summary, what a rules-based system can and cannot do with it, and why the pattern looks backwards until you remember what a cut means.

How the numbers are measured

Decisions are announced at 2 p.m. Eastern. Bitcoin's daily close is midnight UTC, which is 8 p.m. Eastern on the decision day, so the "day" figure captures the first six hours of reaction, measured from the previous day's close. "Next day" is the close 24 hours after that, "week" is seven calendar days on, and "month" is 30 calendar days on. Since Bitcoin trades every day, the two unscheduled cuts of March 2020, including the Sunday one, are measured the same way as the rest. Decisions are classified from the Fed's own record of target-range changes; everything else on the meeting calendar is a hold.

The summary: 55 decisions, 2020 to September 2026

• All 55 decisions: day +1.1% average, +0.3% median, up 58% of the time. Next day +0.8% average. Week +0.5% average, +0.9% median, up 55%. Month +4.3% average, +2.1% median, up 53%.
• 8 cuts: day minus 0.5% average, up only 38%. Week minus 0.4% average but minus 4.7% median, up 38%. Month +2.7% average, minus 2.0% median, up 38%.
• 12 hikes: day +1.5% average, up 75%. Week minus 2.9% average, up 42%. Month minus 3.9% average, up 33%.
• 35 holds: day +1.4% average, +0.2% median, up 57%. Week +1.9% average, +2.6% median, up 63%. Month +7.5% average, +4.9% median, up 63%.
• Volatility: the average absolute move on a decision day is 2.8%, against 2.1% for every day since 2020 and 2.4% for Wednesdays alone. 36% of decision days moved more than 3% in either direction; 22% of all days do.
• Does the first six hours tell you the week? The sign of the decision-day move matched the sign of the week's move 33 times out of 55, or 60%.
• The big weeks: 16 of the 55 decision weeks ended more than 10% from where they started. Seven were in the 2020 to 2021 run, the three worst were hikes in 2022 (May minus 23%, November minus 22%, June minus 10%), four came in 2023 and 2024 (including the one cut followed by a big up week, November 2024, the week after the election, +15%), and the two most recent were a hold in January 2026 (minus 18%) and the September 2026 hike (+12%).

Why cuts look bad and hikes look good

The intuitive story is that lower rates help risk assets and higher rates hurt them, so Bitcoin should rally on cuts. The table says the opposite, and the reason is what a cut tends to mean. The Fed cut in March 2020 because markets were already collapsing; Bitcoin fell 11% in the week after the March 3 cut. It cut in late 2024 and three times in late 2025 as growth softened, and Bitcoin was lower a week after each of the 2025 cuts: minus 3.0% in September, minus 8.0% in October, minus 7.1% in December. A cut is often confirmation of the reason for the cut, and the reason was already in the price.

Hikes ran the other way for a while. In 2022 the decision days themselves were usually green (the market had priced the hike and relief followed the statement), but seven days later the trend reasserted itself: the three worst decision weeks in the whole set are 2022 hikes. The one hike since, September 2026, was followed by Bitcoin's best decision week since November 2024, +11.6%, which fits the rest of the table only in the sense that the day-one reaction told you nothing about the week.

Holds were the best group a month out, and that number needs its context: 35 holds include most of the 2020 to 2021 bull market, when any Wednesday was a good one. Strip those years and the hold months are closer to flat. The point is not that holds are bullish; it is that the Fed's decision has been a worse guide to Bitcoin's next month than the trend it was already in. The year-by-year correlation post shows the same thing from another angle: since 2020 Bitcoin has moved with the S&P 500 on the big days, and Fed day is one of the big days.

The Sunday cut

On Sunday, March 15, 2020, the Fed cut by a full point at an emergency meeting at 5 p.m. Eastern. Stocks could not trade until Monday morning; Bitcoin could, and did. It closed Sunday up 3.7%, fell 3.6% on Monday while the S&P 500 lost about 12%, and finished the week up 12%. That one weekend is the whole case for treating crypto as its own engineering problem: the market never closes, the news does not wait for it, and a stop or a target set on Friday has to be enforced on Sunday by something that is awake.

What a rules-based system does with this

• Nothing predictive. A 60% match between the first six hours and the week, on 55 samples, is not a rule. JorgAI's auto-trader does not trade the Fed; it scans the member's pairs and acts on its own setups under the member's caps.
• Wider stops, same size, on decision days. A decision day moves 2.8% on average and over 3% a third of the time. A 2% stop on Bitcoin that afternoon is inside the noise, and the table shows the first move pointed the wrong way for the week two times in five.
• The exits run at 2 p.m. and at 2 a.m. Stops, targets and trailing stops on Kraken and Crypto.com positions are managed by the platform around the clock, since neither exchange will link a stop to a take-profit on its own; the Kraken vs Crypto.com comparison covers what each exchange holds natively.
• The daily loss limit is the real Fed-day setting. Whatever the decision does, the member's daily loss limit and per-trade cap decide how much of it they can be exposed to. Set those for the 3% day, not the 1% day.

The stock-side version of this exercise is in the October 28 Fed meeting post, and the rate-cut rally guide covers why chasing the first move after a cut has been a poor trade in both markets. Members who want the crypto side automated with their own stops start on the start page; the Kraken setup guide takes about ten minutes.

Every Fed decision since 2020, with Bitcoin's move

Day is the close on the decision day versus the close before it; next day, week and month are 1, 7 and 30 calendar days on, all from the same starting close.

2020: 9 decisions, 2 cuts, 7 holds

• Jan 29 (hold): day -0.5%, next day +1.6%, week +2.7%, month -7.3%.
• Mar 3 (cut 50 bp, unscheduled): day -0.9%, next day -1.3%, week -10.8%, month -23.4%.
• Mar 15 (cut 100 bp, unscheduled): day +3.7%, next day -3.6%, week +12.1%, month +31.6%.
• Apr 29 (hold): day +12.7%, next day +10.9%, week +18.7%, month +20.9%.
• Jun 10 (hold): day +0.8%, next day -4.8%, week -3.2%, month -5.3%.
• Jul 29 (hold): day +1.7%, next day +1.8%, week +7.6%, month +5.8%.
• Sep 16 (hold): day +1.6%, next day +1.4%, week -5.1%, month +4.9%.
• Nov 5 (hold): day +10.2%, next day +10.1%, week +15.2%, month +35.5%.
• Dec 16 (hold): day +9.8%, next day +17.4%, week +19.7%, month +89.7%.

2021: 8 decisions, 8 holds

• Jan 27 (hold): day -6.6%, next day +2.8%, week +15.1%, month +42.3%.
• Mar 17 (hold): day +3.6%, next day +1.9%, week -7.1%, month +8.4%.
• Apr 28 (hold): day -0.4%, next day -2.7%, week +4.3%, month -35.1%.
• Jun 16 (hold): day -5.1%, next day -5.8%, week -16.5%, month -22.2%.
• Jul 28 (hold): day +1.5%, next day +1.5%, week +0.9%, month +24.5%.
• Sep 22 (hold): day +7.1%, next day +10.3%, week +2.1%, month +49.1%.
• Nov 3 (hold): day -0.4%, next day -2.8%, week +2.8%, month -15.2%.
• Dec 15 (hold): day +4.9%, next day +2.3%, week +4.3%, month -7.5%.

2022: 8 decisions, 7 hikes, 1 hold

• Jan 26 (hold): day -0.3%, next day +0.5%, week -0.0%, month +6.1%.
• Mar 16 (hike 25 bp): day +4.6%, next day +4.1%, week +9.0%, month +3.1%.
• May 4 (hike 50 bp): day +5.2%, next day -3.1%, week -23.4%, month -21.3%.
• Jun 15 (hike 75 bp): day +1.6%, next day -8.2%, week -10.0%, month -6.2%.
• Jul 27 (hike 75 bp): day +8.0%, next day +12.3%, week +7.6%, month -4.6%.
• Sep 21 (hike 75 bp): day -1.8%, next day +2.8%, week +2.8%, month +1.5%.
• Nov 2 (hike 75 bp): day -1.6%, next day -1.3%, week -22.5%, month -16.6%.
• Dec 14 (hike 50 bp): day +0.2%, next day -2.3%, week -5.4%, month +12.0%.

2023: 8 decisions, 4 hikes, 4 holds

• Feb 1 (hike 25 bp): day +2.5%, next day +1.4%, week -0.9%, month -3.4%.
• Mar 22 (hike 25 bp): day -3.1%, next day +0.6%, week +0.6%, month -3.2%.
• May 3 (hike 25 bp): day +1.1%, next day +0.6%, week -3.7%, month -5.0%.
• Jun 14 (hold): day -3.1%, next day -1.3%, week +15.8%, month +17.0%.
• Jul 26 (hike 25 bp): day +0.4%, next day -0.1%, week -0.3%, month -10.9%.
• Sep 20 (hold): day -0.3%, next day -2.4%, week -3.1%, month +9.1%.
• Nov 1 (hold): day +2.2%, next day +0.8%, week +2.9%, month +11.6%.
• Dec 13 (hold): day +3.5%, next day +3.8%, week +5.3%, month +3.4%.

2024: 8 decisions, 3 cuts, 5 holds

• Jan 31 (hold): day -0.9%, next day +0.3%, week +3.2%, month +45.4%.
• Mar 20 (hold): day +9.7%, next day +5.8%, week +12.2%, month +3.1%.
• May 1 (hold): day -3.9%, next day -2.5%, week +0.9%, month +11.3%.
• Jun 12 (hold): day +1.4%, next day -0.8%, week -3.5%, month -14.0%.
• Jul 31 (hold): day -2.4%, next day -1.3%, week -16.9%, month -10.7%.
• Sep 18 (cut 50 bp): day +2.2%, next day +4.4%, week +4.7%, month +13.4%.
• Nov 7 (cut 25 bp): day +0.3%, next day +1.2%, week +15.3%, month +32.1%.
• Dec 18 (cut 25 bp): day -5.8%, next day -8.2%, week -6.5%, month -1.6%.

2025: 8 decisions, 3 cuts, 5 holds

• Jan 29 (hold): day +2.3%, next day +3.4%, week -4.7%, month -16.7%.
• Mar 19 (hold): day +5.0%, next day +1.8%, week +5.1%, month +2.1%.
• May 7 (hold): day +0.2%, next day +6.7%, week +7.0%, month +7.8%.
• Jun 18 (hold): day +0.3%, next day +0.1%, week +2.6%, month +12.8%.
• Jul 30 (hold): day -0.1%, next day -1.8%, week -2.5%, month -8.1%.
• Sep 17 (cut 25 bp): day -0.3%, next day +0.2%, week -3.0%, month -8.9%.
• Oct 29 (cut 25 bp): day -2.6%, next day -4.1%, week -8.0%, month -19.5%.
• Dec 10 (cut 25 bp): day -0.7%, next day -0.2%, week -7.1%, month -2.4%.

2026: 6 decisions, 1 hike, 5 holds

• Jan 28 (hold): day +0.1%, next day -5.1%, week -18.1%, month -26.1%.
• Mar 18 (hold): day -3.6%, next day -5.4%, week -3.5%, month +4.3%.
• Apr 29 (hold): day -0.8%, next day -0.1%, week +6.7%, month -3.9%.
• Jun 17 (hold): day -1.8%, next day -4.1%, week -7.0%, month -2.6%.
• Jul 29 (hold): day +0.1%, next day +1.3%, week +1.1%, month +21.9%.
• Sep 16 (hike 25 bp): day +0.7%, next day +1.1%, week +11.6%, month +7.8%.

Quick answers

What does Bitcoin do on Fed decision days? Since 2020 it has moved 2.8% on average on the 55 decision days, up 58% of the time, with a median move of +0.3%. More than a third of decision days moved over 3%.

Does Bitcoin go up when the Fed cuts rates? Not in this record. After the eight cuts since 2020, Bitcoin was down on the decision day five times out of eight and down a week later five times out of eight, with a median week of minus 4.7%. All three 2025 cuts were followed by a down week.

Does Bitcoin fall when the Fed raises rates? On the day, usually not: it rose on 9 of the 12 hike days. Over the following week it fell on 7 of 12, by 2.9% on average, with the worst weeks in 2022.

When is the next Fed decision? Wednesday, October 28, 2026, at 2 p.m. Eastern, followed by December 9. Bitcoin trades through both announcements and the weekends around them.

Data: Bitcoin daily closes from Yahoo Finance (BTC-USD, every calendar day, closes at midnight UTC) through October 26, 2026; decision dates from the Federal Reserve's FOMC calendars and decision types from the Federal Reserve's table of target-range changes, both read October 26, 2026. 53 scheduled decisions plus the unscheduled cuts of March 3 and March 15, 2020; the cancelled March 17-18, 2020 meeting is excluded. Past moves are not predictions. Education, not financial advice.