Binance Research Sees Bitcoin (BTC) Support Before Rate Cuts as 8 of 10 Banks Hiked

8 of 10 Central Banks Still Tightening

Binance Research said on Tuesday that Bitcoin (BTC) could find support before any major central bank begins cutting rates, provided the spread of global rate hikes keeps slowing. The Bitcoin price stood at $73,841 at the time of writing, down 0.7% since the report was released at 13:15 UTC. The argument rests on a scoreboard of 10 major central banks that the exchange's research arm has tracked through the current hiking phase. Eight of the 10 had raised rates over the last six months, the most recent being Sweden's announced increase on Nov. 4. A slowdown in hikes is not a cut, and the report is careful to keep the two apart. What matters to the authors is not the count but its slope: the momentum of tightening has been easing since its July peak, and the report frames that pace, not the level of any single rate, as the variable crypto prices respond to. Whether the easing “continues into early 2027” decides, in the report's words, whether the macro backdrop turns less hostile for crypto. The historical leg of the argument leans on sequence rather than on the level of rates. Bitcoin (BTC) bottomed in November 2022, and its six-month return turned positive in February 2023, before any of the central banks in the index had started cutting. Policy stayed restrictive through that recovery; the asset moved first, the central banks moved later. The researchers read 2024, a year inside the current Bitcoin halving cycle, the same way: with tightening measures still winding down, the asset delivered its strongest six-month return of that cycle, a run that exceeded 160% by March. Their conclusion, that Bitcoin tracked where policy was heading rather than where the rate level sat, is the premise the present setup has to repeat.

Waller Keeps a December Hike Alive

The hawkish counterweight sits in Washington. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Tuesday he is leaning toward a quarter-point hike in December, and would consider a half-point move if core inflation remains elevated. Rate futures pricing moved with him: implied odds of a 25-basis-point December increase climbed from 76.3% to 96.3% during Tuesday's session, a jump of 20 points that left the move almost fully priced. Odds at that level leave little room for the December meeting to surprise. That is the near-term tension in the report's thesis. Global tightening momentum may be fading at the margin, but the world's largest policy setter is still steering rates higher next month. A second research shop reached a compatible conclusion earlier this month. Asset manager Bitwise, which runs a spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF, argued in its Nov. 2 report that a slowdown in economic growth expectations could eventually push central banks toward easing policy, setting up a more favorable environment for Bitcoin. The two notes differ on mechanism, one scores the pace of hikes, the other watches growth expectations crack, but they converge on the trigger: the turn arrives through central bank behavior, not through a chart. The market has not traded the thesis yet. The coin fell 3.5% over the past week, stretching its one-year decline to 30%, and market data showed it changing hands near $74,131, roughly 41% below the $126,198 all-time high, shortly after the research landed. Our Bitcoin technical analysis tracks how the nearby levels sit against that tape. The slide extends a stretch we covered when the market traded near $74,000 after a 4.94% weekly drop, and macro data has done its share of the damage: earlier this quarter, a hot October CPI print triggered $200 million in crypto long liquidations within five minutes.

Fear at 32, BTC Share at 68.9%

Our aggregate market data reads the same tape the report describes. The Fear & Greed Index reads 32, deep in fear, and capital's center of gravity rests with Bitcoin, which accounts for 68.9% of the coins we track across a total tracked market cap of roughly $2.16 trillion. Underneath, smaller holders keep adding: wallets holding 1-100 BTC, the cohort most often tagged with the HODL label, added 14,207 coins in two weeks, our earlier on-chain review shows. Fearful sentiment and heavy concentration in the largest asset leave little appetite for risk elsewhere, which is why a change in policy direction, not its level, carries the weight here. The report's condition stands: the slowdown must persist into early 2027. Until central banks act, cycle tools from the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart to the halving clock stay descriptive, not predictive.