Bitcoin Round-Trips the First Fed Rate Increase Since 2023 as Zcash Runs to $1,383

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate on Wednesday for the first time since July 2023, and bitcoin traded through the decision little changed.

The vote was unanimous, against three dissents for an increase at the July meeting, and the committee's own projections now point to one more this year. Equities and gold gave back the morning's gains in the half hour after the release and closed below Tuesday. Crypto went the other way into the evening. Breadth flipped from 39 gainers at 3 p.m. to 87, and the largest move is Zcash at 19.1%.

Bitcoin last changed hands at $75,928, up 0.6% over 24 hours and down 2.7% over seven days, CoinGecko data shows. Ether was at $2,402, up 0.4% on the day and down 2.3% on the week. Zcash rose 19%, and Arbitrum 14%. Stellar added 3.1%, Solana 1.6%, BNB 1.2% and XRP 0.9%.

Total crypto market value stood at $2.68 trillion on $93.5 billion of volume, with bitcoin dominance at 56.84%, CoinGecko data shows. Weighted by market value, the 500 largest tokens rose 0.75% over 24 hours and fell 2.7% over seven days. Eighty-seven of the 123 largest non-stablecoin tokens rose, 34 fell and two were unchanged.

Twelve To Nothing

The committee raised the target range for the federal funds rate "by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent, in support of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate," according to the statement released Wednesday afternoon. It passed by a 12-0 vote.

"Inflation remains elevated," the statement reads. "Today's policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal." On the labor market: "Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little." The committee said economic activity is expanding at a solid pace, and that productivity growth is strong and capital investment robust.

The range returns to where it stood between the Oct. 30 and Dec. 11 meetings of 2025. The last change before Wednesday was the Dec. 11 quarter-point cut to 3.50%-3.75%, and the last increase was July 27, 2023, which took the range to 5.25%-5.50%, Fed records show.

Nobody dissented. Minutes of the July 28-29 meeting show Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari and Lorie Logan dissenting in favor of a quarter-point increase, and that "many participants assessed that policy tightening would likely be necessary if inflation did not decline."

The Dots Move Up

The median participant now sees the federal funds rate at 4.1% at the end of 2026, against 3.8% in the June projections, leaving room for one more quarter-point increase before year end. The median holds at 4.1% through the end of 2027, falls to 3.9% for 2028 and sits at 3.2% in the longer run.

The inflation forecast moved with it. Eighteen participants put median PCE inflation at 3.7% for 2026 and core PCE at 3.4%, against unemployment at 4.1% and real GDP growth at 2.3%.

Traders took the projections to the next meeting. Polymarket priced no change at the Oct. 27-28 decision at 60.5% and a quarter-point increase at 39%, the increase up 2.5 points on the day, on $3.58 million of volume across the event. The September market, which carried $207.8 million, priced a quarter-point increase at 99.95% after the release, against 87.5% on Wednesday morning.

A Five-Minute Spike

Bitcoin was at $75,688.82 when the statement landed and reached $76,499.99 in the five minutes to 2:10 p.m. ET, Coinbase five-minute candles show. It was back at $75,725.11 ten minutes later and set its session low of $74,911.53 at 2:35 p.m. It recovered through the afternoon to $76,345 in the 4 p.m. hour and last traded at $75,937.26.

Stocks and gold ran the same round trip and did not recover it. The S&P 500 closed at 7,551.81, down 0.4% from Tuesday and 1% off its 7,626.79 high of the day, and the Nasdaq Composite at 25,978.42, level with Tuesday's close after trading as high as 26,225.09. Gold settled at $4,302.50, down 0.7% on the day, having touched $4,413.10 before the release. Brent crude was at $105.60 a barrel, down 2.9% from Tuesday's settle of $108.75.

Yields went the other way. The 10-year par yield closed at 5.01% on Wednesday, its highest close since July 19, 2007, when it settled at 5.04%, Treasury data shows. It is the second consecutive close at or above 5%. The two-year closed at 4.74%, up 7 basis points on the day and the highest close of 2026, the five-year at 4.86% and the 30-year at 5.35%.

Andreja Cobeljic, head of derivatives trading at AMINA Bank, had set a condition for a rally in commentary sent to reporters Wednesday morning. "Most major banks are forecasting a 25 basis point hike today and 50 basis points until year end. If it arrives without signalling a more aggressive path than markets have already priced in, that is the clearest path to a relief rally across risk assets, which includes Bitcoin and gold," he said. The median 2026 projection moved up 0.3 percentage point from June.

Cobeljic also tied the inflation print to oil. "If inflation is being driven by geopolitics and supply destruction rather than demand, higher rates slow growth without fixing prices," he said.

Zcash Runs Past $1,380

Zcash opened at $1,110.10 on Coinbase and reached $1,383.30 in the quarter hour beginning at 2 p.m. ET, above the $1,297.77 it had reached on Sept. 9. It closed the session at $1,320.12, an 18.9% gain, on $2.19 billion of volume across exchanges. ZEC is 58.6% below the $3,191.93 CoinGecko records for October 2016, the month of its launch. At a $22.39 billion market value it ranks tenth, ahead of Hyperliquid.

No Zcash announcement accompanied the move. The Electric Coin Company's blog has not posted since December. Grayscale filed to convert its Zcash trust into a spot ETF in November 2025. Monero, the other large privacy token, fell 1.2% to $493.50.

Arbitrum closed Tuesday 13.5% higher and added 7.7% on Wednesday, from an open of $0.15174 to $0.16344 on Coinbase, with a high of $0.17369. It turned over $563.9 million against a $1.10 billion market value. Standard Chartered set a $10 price target on the token on Tuesday, which The Defiant covered. Arbitrum's press page carries nothing dated September, and the governance forum threads posted Sept. 14 through Sept. 16 cover grant reports, delegate updates and a treasury question.

Raydium, Dash, Lighter and NEAR Protocol each added more than 11% over 24 hours. Raydium, Arbitrum and NEAR are the only names in the table besides Zcash holding a seven-day gain.

XRP's Second Session

XRP closed at $1.4228 on Coinbase on Monday, traded as high as $1.4593 on Tuesday morning before the Senate vote and ended Tuesday at $1.2823. It last traded at $1.2946, a two-session decline of 9%, after adding 0.9% on Wednesday.

Stellar followed the same shape and recovered further. XLM closed Monday at $0.191617, reached $0.1985 on Tuesday morning and settled at $0.176045. It last traded at $0.180975, up 2.8% on Wednesday, and is one of two tokens among the 20 largest with a seven-day gain, at 0.4%. The other is Zcash, at 5.5%.

Neither project published anything dated Tuesday or Wednesday. Ripple's Insights blog last posted on Sept. 11, on stablecoin regulation. The Stellar Development Foundation's blog last posted on Sept. 14, on tokenized asset pricing.

The Senate voted 49-50 on Tuesday afternoon against taking up the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, 11 votes short of the 60 cloture needed. The Defiant reported the tally and the four Republican no votes on Tuesday and trade group and executive reaction on Wednesday morning.

"The Act was always about longevity — giving crypto market structure a legislative foundation that survives changes in administration. That foundation is now missing," Cobeljic said. "What remains is the regulatory direction itself, and that is still moving forward."

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index read 51, or neutral, on Wednesday, against 69 on Tuesday and 57 on Monday, according to Alternative.me. It is the lowest reading since Aug. 19, when the index read 46. The index publishes once a day at 00:00 UTC.

ETF Buyers Walk Out

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $450.4 million on Tuesday, according to Farside Investors. Fidelity's FBTC accounted for $214.8 million of the outflow, BlackRock's IBIT for $161.7 million and Grayscale's GBTC for $44.1 million. The six sessions from Sept. 8 through Sept. 15 produced a net outflow of $753.2 million, with one day of inflows in the run, $159.9 million on Monday. Spot ether ETFs lost $49.5 million on Tuesday, with Grayscale's ETHE at $17.5 million. Wednesday's figures had not published as of 6 p.m. ET.

Glassnode put the same picture on chain in its Week On Chain report published Wednesday. "On-chain and ETF inflows have stopped, stablecoin supply is flat, treasuries are under water and not buying, altcoins have rolled over, and options pay for downside under a wall of calls," Frederik Theissen wrote. The report puts the True Market Mean, which it defines as the average price paid by investors who are still active, at $76,700, and the short-term holder cost basis at $71,300.

DeFi total value locked fell 2.3% over 24 hours to $86.71 billion and 1.8% over seven days, DefiLlama data shows. Stablecoin supply stood at $309.48 billion, down 0.35% over seven days and up 1.08% over 30 days, net redemptions of $1.08 billion since Sept. 9 against net issuance of $3.31 billion since Aug. 17.

Akedo Gives It Back

Akedo was the largest decliner among the 150 biggest tokens, a day after leading the gainers at 79.2% in Tuesday's wrap. It holds a 27.8% gain over seven days. No announcement accompanied either session.

Rain holds the largest seven-day decline among the 20 largest non-stablecoin tokens at 16.5%. It ranks fourteenth by market value at $9.35 billion on $27.1 million of 24-hour volume, a turnover ratio of 0.29%.

Aave fell 3.3% on a day it announced a product. The Defiant covered Aave Labs' plan for a tokenized-asset credit market on Avalanche using Tether's USA₮, which goes to a DAO vote and carries no launch date.

Pi Network is 97.1% below the $2.99 it reached in February 2025 and set its record low on July 14. No project announcement accompanied the move.

Prices and market data as of 6 p.m. ET on Sept. 16, 2026.