This week could be crucial for markets including Bitcoin Seven major central banks, including the Federal Reserve, are due to announce interest rate decisions, while a war-driven rise in oil prices could reignite inflation in the global economy.
Most central banks are expected to keep interest rates steady, but hawkish comments from policymakers driven by inflation concerns could trigger downside moves in risk assets.
Bitwise head of European research André Dragosch told CoinDesk that while a reflation environment has historically been supportive of Bitcoin, rising inflation expectations are pushing bond yields higher and tightening financial conditions. These conditions often make riskier investments less attractive.
Dragosh said geopolitical tensions still dominate the market backdrop. Historically, such shocks tend to fade quickly, and Bitcoin tends to deliver above-average returns following elevated geopolitical risks.
“Investors should generally downplay such events and view them as short-term buying opportunities,” Dragosch said.
Bitcoin is currently trading at what Dragosch calls the “biggest macro discount” on record, with market sentiment near FTX crash lows. “We’re probably closer to the bottom than the top,” he said.
What to see
(All times are Eastern Time)
- cryptocurrency
- March 17: Lava Network (LAVA) will expand with 17 new chain integrations and 9 new blockchain ecosystems.
- March 19: Deadline for Walrus (WAL) Tusky users to migrate their data.
- March 23: The Backpack token generation event occurs, with 250 million tokens issued (25% of the total supply).
- Macro
- March 16, 8:30 a.m.: Canada’s consumer price index (CPI) increased year-on-year in February (previous value: 2.3%)
- 4:30 am on March 17: The Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate decision is expected to be 4.1% (previous value 3.85%)
- March 17, 10:00 am: U.S. pending home sales in February (previous value -0.8%)
- March 18, 6 am: Eurozone consumer price index (CPI) for February. The month-on-month forecast is 0.7% (-0.6% last year); the year-on-year forecast is 1.9% (the same period last year: 1.7%)
- March 18, 8:30 am: US PPI for February. Year-on-year expectations are 3.7% (previous value: 3.6%); core PPI is expected to be 3.2% year-on-year (previous value: 3.6%)
- March 18, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada decides on interest rate at 2.25% (previously 2.25%)
- March 18, 10:00 am: US factory orders in January month-on-month (previous value -0.7%)
- March 18, 2:00 pm: Federal Reserve interest rate decision is expected. 3.50%-3.75% (previously 3.50%-3.75%); Federal Open Market Committee Economic Forecast
- March 18, 2:30 pm: Federal Reserve Chairman’s Press Conference
- March 18, 5:30 pm: Brazilian Central Bank Selic interest rate decision Est. 14.50% (previously 15%)
- March 18, 11 pm: Bank of Japan interest rate decision expected. 0.75% (previously 0.75%)
- March 19, 4:30 a.m.: Swiss National Bank interest rate decision expected. 0% (previously 0%)
- March 19, 8 a.m.: Bank of England interest rate decision expected. 3.75% (previously 3.75%).
- March 19, 8:30 a.m. ET: 215K initial jobless claims for the week ending March 14 (previously 213K)
- March 19, 8:30 a.m.: Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in March (previous value 16.3)
- March 19, 9:15 am: European Central Bank’s main refinancing rate forecast rate decision. An increase of 2.15% compared with the same period last year 2.15%
- March 19, 4:30 p.m.: Fed balance sheet for the week ended March 18 (previous value $6.65)
- March 20, 8:30 am: Canadian PPI year-on-year (previous value 5.4%); month-on-month (previous value 2.7%)
income (Estimate based on FactSet data)
- March 16: Bakkt Holdings (BKKT), post-market, -$0.47
- March 16: Bitcoin Depot (BTM), pre-market, -$0.47
- March 16: Cango (CANG), post-market, -$0.34
- March 17: CEA Industries (BNC), post-market, $0.69
- March 18: Bitfarms (BITF), pre-market, -$0.03
- March 19: Gemini Space Station (GEMI), after market, -$0.91
- March 20: BitFuFu (FUFU), pre-market, $0.01
Token event
- Governance votes and calls
- March 17: Mantle (MNT) will host State of Mind Ep. 07, Discuss CeDeFi milestones and DeFi strategies.
- March 18: Jupiter (JUP) will hold a weekly Planetary Call community meeting to provide team updates.
- March 18: Marketing and PR executives discuss ecosystem updates.
- The Decentraland DAO is voting on whether to allow registered users to customize the color of their avatar name tags and add a more accessible volume slider to the UI sidebar. Voting will close on March 16-17.
- Convex Finance is voting on the Curve and Frax indicator weight distribution for the week of March 12, guiding vlCVX’s voting power in hundreds of liquidity pools. It also votes on the FXN meter weight distribution for the same period. Voting ends on March 17.
- The Aavegotchi DAO is voting to determine multi-signer elections for 2026-2027, retaining the 5-out-of-9 threshold and setting quarterly signer compensation. Voting ends on March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO is conducting its 3rd round of voting to select 7 out of the remaining 10 nominees as multi-signers, thus completing the roster of 9 signers for the DAO Foundation wallet. Voting ends on March 17.
- Aura Finance is voting on the Balancer indicator weight allocation for the week of March 12, directing vlAURA voting rights for Balancer pools on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Gnosis, Base and Avalanche. Voting ends on March 17.
- The ShapeShift DAO is voting to establish and fund a new international user experience workflow for six months to maintain professional multilingual translations of ShapeShift apps and websites. Voting ends on March 17.
- WalletConnect Network is voting to allocate 50 million WCT tokens as a dedicated reward budget for WalletConnect Pay in 2026. Voting ends on March 18.
- ENS is voting to make a one-time transfer of 900,000 USDC from the ENS endowment fund to wallet.ensdao.eth to cover the shortfall in streaming payments owed to ENS Labs. Voting ends on March 18.
- The Cratos DAO is voting to extend the current standard period for mobile app rewards by one month to April 30, 2026. Voting ends on March 19.
- The Lightchain AI DAO is voting on a temporary 90-day team permissions proposal that would grant the core team 90 days of temporary operational permissions to make daily and strategic decisions. Voting closes on March 22.
- Unlock
- March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) unlocked 1.78% of its circulating supply, worth $9.65 million.
- March 20: LayerZero (ZRO) unlocked 5.64% of its circulating supply, worth $52.45 million.
- Token issuance
