The price of Bitcoin has seen a small uptick during today’s trading session, but the cryptocurrency has been unable to break the sideways trend. Today, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) announced a 25 basis points (bps) rate hike, but uncertainty in the financial world remains king.

As of this writing, Bitcoin (BTC) trades at $28,600 with sideways movement across the board. Other major cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market capitalization have experienced similar price action except for XRP and Cardano (ADA), which record small losses in the past 24 hours.

According to a report from the trading desk QCP Capital, Bitcoin, and the crypto market have been in an 8 week long confusion phase. As a result, the nascent industry experienced a decline in its Implied Volatility (IV), leading to the current sideways price action.

Volatility, as measured by the VIX Index, is crashing to levels last seen during the 2022 bearish phase. This dynamic might trigger an aggressive move in the coming weeks, but the direction of such price action is unclear.

However, two key events could support Bitcoin in reclaiming higher levels. Both scenarios will operate on the macroeconomic board, which keeps exercising a strong influence over BTC and other financial assets.

First, QCP Capital argues that in the next two months, the U.S. banking crisis will still be relevant, along with the debt ceiling in the country. These narratives create the perception that the fiat system is weak, which could lead to further bank runs.

Thus, the Fed must continue bailing out banking institutions and injecting liquidity into the financial markets. The debt ceiling presents a similar issue; the federal government might be forced to intervene because the U.S. is unlikely to default on its debt.

As a result, more and more liquidity could enter financial markets allowing Bitcoin to breathe and resume its bullish momentum. According to QCP Capital, this phenomenon is already happening.

Due to the banking crisis in the U.S., the Fed has been forced to intervene, increasing the side of its balance sheet by almost $500 billion over the past two weeks, as seen in the chart below.

The Fed last injected this much liquidity during the COVID-19 crisis. At that time, the price of Bitcoin recorded a massive profit and entered price discovery for at least 12 months. The trading firm stated the following about BTC’s potential to see similar profits:

The analog compares BTC price action now (red line) vs. BTC during the 2020 cycle (yellow line) by lining up the March 2020 and March 2022 lows. It shows that while we are likely in for a period of consolidation here, the underlying trend ahead is still strongly to the upside.

Charts from QCP Capital and Tradingview

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