The week could prove decisive for markets, including bitcoin with the US Federal Reserve among seven major central banks set to announce interest rate decisions as war-fuelled oil price rises threaten to reignite inflation in the global economy.
Most of the central banks are expected to keep interest rates steady, but hawkish comments from policymakers, driven by inflation concerns, could trigger downside volatility across risk assets.
While reflationary environments have historically supported bitcoin, rising inflation expectations are pushing bond yields higher and tightening financial conditions, André Dragosch, European head of research at Bitwise, told CoinDesk. These conditions generally make riskier investments less attractive.
Still, geopolitical tensions currently dominate the market’s backdrop, according to Dragosch. Historically, such shocks tend to fade quickly, and bitcoin has often delivered above-average returns after periods of heightened geopolitical risk.
“Investors should generally fade these kinds of events and view them as short-term buying opportunities,” Dragosch said.
Bitcoin is trading in what Dragosch called the “biggest macro discount” ever, with sentiment near FTX collapse lows. “We’re probably closer to the bottom than the top,” he said.
What to see
(All times ET)
- Crypto
- March 17: Lava Network (LAVA) expands with 17 new chain integrations and nine new blockchain ecosystems.
- March 19: Walrus (WAL) deadline for Tusky users to migrate their data.
- March 23rd: Backpack token generation event will take place where 250 million tokens (25% of total supply) will be distributed.
- Macro
- 16 March at 8:30 AM: Canada Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY for February (prev 2.3%)
- 17 March at 04:30: Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate decision estimated at 4.1% (previously 3.85%).
- 17 March at 10:00 AM: US Pending Home Sales MoM for February (Prev -0.8%)
- 18 March at 6: Eurozone consumer price index (CPI) for February. MoM estimated 0.7% (Prev -0.6%); Annual estimated 1.9% (Previous 1.7%)
- 18 March at 8:30 AM: US PPI for February. YoY estimated 3.7% (Previous 3.6%); Core PPI YoY estimated 3.2% (Previous 3.6%)
- 18 March at 9:45am: Bank of Canada rate decision Est. 2.25% (Previous 2.25%)
- 18 March at 10am: US Factory Orders MoM for January (Prev -0.7%)
- 18 March at 14:00: Bold interest rate decision Est. 3.50%-3.75% (Previous 3.50%-3.75%); FOMC economic projections
- 18 March at 2.30 p.m.: Fed chairman’s press conference
- March 18, 17:30: Central Bank of Brazil Selic rate decision Est. 14.50% (Previous 15%)
- 18 March at 23:00: Bank of Japan rate decision Est. 0.75% (Previous 0.75%)
- 19 March at 04.30: The Swiss National Bank’s interest rate decision Est. 0% (Previous 0%)
- 19 March at 8: Bank of England interest rate decision Est. 3.75% (Previously 3.75%).
- 19 March at 8.30am: US initial jobless claims for week ending March 14. 215K (Previously 213K)
- 19 March at 8.30: US Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index for March (previous 16.3)
- 19 March at 9:15: ECB interest rate decision for main refinancing rate Est. 2.15% Previous. 2.15%
- 19 March at 4.30pm: Fed balance sheet for week ending March 18 (Prev $6.65T)
- 20 March at 8:30am: Canada PPI YoY (Prev 5.4%); MoM (Previous 2.7%)
Earnings (Estimated 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), after 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), premarket, $0.01
Token Events
- Governance votes and calls
- March 17: Mantle (MNT) to host State of Mind Ep. 07 where we discuss CeDeFi milestones and DeFi strategies.
- March 18: Jupiter (JUP) holds its weekly Planetary Call community session with team updates.
- March 18: Head of Marketing & PR to discuss ecosystem updates.
- Decentraland DAO votes on whether to allow registered users to customize the color of their avatar moniker and add a more accessible volume slider to the UI sidebar. Voting ends March 16 and 17.
- Convex Finance votes on curve and Frax benchmark weight assignments for the week of March 12, managing vlCVX voting power across hundreds of liquidity pools. This is also true of FXN benchmark allocations for the same period. Voting ends March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO votes to end its selection of multisig signers in 2026-2027, maintaining the 5-of-9 threshold and setting quarterly signer compensation. Voting ends March 17.
- The Aavegotchi DAO runs vote 3 to select seven of the remaining 10 nominees as multi-sig signers, completing the list of nine signers for the DAO Foundation wallet. Voting ends March 17.
- Aura Finance votes on Balancer measurement weight allocations for the week of March 12th, managing vlAURA voting power across Balancer pools on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Gnosis, Base and Avalanche. Voting ends March 17.
- The ShapeShift DAO votes to establish and fund a new international UX workstream for six months to maintain professional multilingual translations of the ShapeShift app and website. Voting ends March 17.
- The 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 votes for a one-time transfer of 900,000 USDC from the ENS Endowment to wallet.ensdao.eth to cover a shortfall in stream payments owed to ENS Labs. Voting ends March 18.
- Cratos DAO votes to extend the current default mobile app reward deadline by one month to April 30, 2026. Voting ends March 19.
- Lightchain AI DAO votes on a temporary 90-day team authority proposal, which gives the core team temporary operational authority for 90 days to make day-to-day and strategic decisions. Voting ends March 22.
- Unlocks
- March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) unlocks 1.78% of its circulating supply, worth $9.65 million.
- March 20: LayerZero (ZRO) to unlock 5.64% of its circulating supply, worth $52.45 million.
- The token is launched
