Bitcoin briefly touched $75,912 early Tuesday before pulling back to $74,372, but intraday volatility is less interesting than the weekly picture below that.
CoinDesk reported earlier Tuesday that the push above $75,000 was driven by derivatives activity rather than fresh buying, specifically the closing of large $60,000 put positions that forced market makers to buy spot bitcoin as they rebalanced.
The quick pullback below $74,400, a previous support level from April 2025, confirmed that traders are unwilling to chase above this level without a fundamental catalyst.
Every major token is up at least 5% over seven days. Ether rose 13.3% to $2,316. xrp rose 11% to $1.53, olana rose 9.7% to $93.92. Dogecoin added 9.5% to $0.10, back over a penny. BNB rose 5% to $676. This is the broadest sustained rally since before the Iran war began, and it’s coming into the most consistent Fed meeting in months.
But the institutional flow data during the rally is real and getting harder to dismiss. CF Benchmarks analyst Mark Pilipczuk noted in an email that spot bitcoin ETFs drew about $767 million in net inflows last week, the third straight week of positive flows and a sharp reversal from the five-week, $3 billion-plus outflow streak earlier this year.
The gold convergence trade is another signal worth watching. Year-to-date to mid-March, GLD returned approx. 16%, while IBIT lost approx. 19%. But that gap has narrowed sharply, with bitcoin outperforming gold by 13.2% since early March. The 90-day correlation between the two shifted from -0.27 to +0.29 over six months. The “digital gold” narrative that looked dead in February is getting oxygen again.
The Fed meeting, which begins today and ends Wednesday, is the focal point. CME FedWatch is still pricing a 95%+ probability of a hold of 3.5% to 3.75%, so the decision itself is a non-event.
What matters is the dot plot and Powell’s press conference. Oil above $100 makes the stagflation case inevitable, but the labor market is weakening, with February’s loss of 92,000 jobs still fresh. The Fed is caught between two mandates that are pulling in opposite directions, and how Powell articulates that the tension on Wednesday could set the direction of risk assets until the end of March.
