Bitcoin's Two-Week Fed Test: Inflation Rewrite Threatens Rate Cuts

Bitcoin's next Federal Reserve test is split across two dates as policymakers prepare to make decisions on September 16 and then reassess inflation data on September 30.

The Federal Open Market Committee will meet on September 15-16, considering August payrolls, producer prices, and consumer prices. However, the official August personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation data, along with a Bureau of Economic Analysis annual update that revises the PCE series, is not scheduled until September 30.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller has already put a number on one part of the pending change, estimating that a new method for portfolio-management services could lower 12-month PCE inflation by 'a few tenths of a percentage point.'