Bitcoin’s Next Move Comes Down to the Fed? | Trading The Market: September 16, 2026

Bijan Maleki (0:06)

Happy Wednesday, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Trading the Markets. I'm Bijan Maleki, and of course, we're joined by Kris Bullock, aka Blasto Plast. And we have a guest for you today. So for those of you that tuned in last week to The World According to AI, you will have met Ryan, or if you were in our Discord already, you already know Ryan. He goes by Chamber of X in our Discord. He's joining us today as well. Well, you know, just join us on the show, chat it up a bit, talk a little bit about risk management in trading, and just, you know, share his insights, because if you've been, like I said, if you've been in the Discord, you know that Ryan is all over it, and always chatting us up and talking about trades and risk management and a whole bunch of things. So we'll get into all of that today. But we've got a good show for you guys today, or maybe not so good depending on how much you put weight into the Clarity Act being passed. But we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about a little bit of the FOMC as well. Kris is going to talk about some different outcomes that he could see crypto going.

And then we're going to talk about some assets as well.

So Kris, without further ado, take it over, my friend.

Kris Bullock (1:29)

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, let's just jump off right out of the gate with the Clarity, since that was yesterday. That was the big thing. We thought maybe earlier in the week, we saw some rumblings that there was, it looked like it might pass. I think on Polymarket and stuff, it got up to a 30 percent chance.

And then it was quickly, of course, you know, killed.

So where does that leave us?

I think the big point that I want to make is while Clarity passing would have been an upside catalyst, it's not actually the foundation of the crypto bull market as it stands right now. Like, we're not all buying Bitcoin right now because of what's going on with the Clarity Act. You know, there's all kinds of other things happening right now that are the bullish case for Bitcoin and for crypto at large. And yeah, the Clarity Act would have been a nice boost, but none of that has to do with what's going on with the Clarity Act. Also, the Clarity Act technically isn't technically dead. It's just kind of on pause right now. It failed the motion to advance, you know, debate on the Senate floor. But it's still there and it still exists. It still can resurface. It can come back. I don't know that it will, but it can. The other big thing that I think is important to highlight is that in the meantime, both the SEC and the CFTC are already in the process of rulemaking and are effectively going to implement much of what the Clarity Act would have brought. Not all of it, but a lot of it, you know, things like market structure, things like regulation, things like fundraising, you know, things like allowing certain assets to be traded on regular brokerages, you know, tokenized stocks, kind of all of that stuff. They're in the process of building out rules to effectively, you know, implement the Clarity Act as much as they possibly can in the short term. And that's already underway. Like, wheels are already in motion for that to happen. Now the big, of course, takeaway from that is that's just rulemaking and that's subject to change. That's not like codified into law. So as soon as this administration leaves and the next administration comes in, if they're, you know, ideologically opposed to whatever has been implemented, they, of course, can put in a new SCZ commissioner who then will then reverse all of that stuff. So that's the problem. But my kind of hope is that they'll get some of these rules going. We'll start to get some, like, momentum built from whatever these implementations, you know, create, and we'll start to get some things kind of entrenched to where, sure, it's not codified into law, but it's still like, oh, actually, this turned out to be a good idea. And maybe the next administration, regardless of which side of the aisle they're on, they go, yeah, okay, let's keep that rolling. This turned out to be okay. Hopefully, we'll see. So, it's not as good, but also Clarity Act could come back up, it could come back up in the next legislative session, who knows, you know, it's all up in the air. But the point being, it's not the thing that we're all working off of, and two, there's, again, there's rulemaking in place that will help things in the meantime. So, I don't really care about the Clarity Act right now, frankly, I think like we can all move on, because there's much more important things going on that are the actual real catalysts for Bitcoin and crypto and everything else right now, and that's kind of what's going on with the FOMC and with interest rates and bond yields and the larger macrospace. That's really what is the crypto catalyst right now, and that's what is more important. And so, I briefly want to go through, I think my three most likely outcomes, one of them certainly more likely than the other two, but talk about three potential scenarios, rather, that I think are going to come from today's FOMC meeting and what I see Bitcoin and crypto doing based off of those outcomes. And so, probably the most likely scenario, like the highest probability scenario, I'll say, and what would be the cleanest outcome would be a 25 basis point hike and for Warsh to come on and just kind of say, here we are, you know, this is going to be all it is and everything is fine, let's just kind of move forward and not sort of talk about potentially additional hikes coming down the road, you know.