As bitcoin (BTC) looks to recover from its recent downturn, observers are looking to Wednesday’s Federal Reserve (Fed) rate decision to offer support, with some saying that an announcement to end the balance sheet runoff program, known as quantitative tightening, could be positive news for the market.

The Fed will announce its rate review at 18:00 UTC, followed by Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference half an hour later.

The bank is unlikely to offer any surprises on the interest rate front, retaining the present range of 4.25% to 4.50%. Therefore, the focus will be on how policymakers plan to proceed with the quantitative tightening program, given the concerns that it could affect liquidity in the system while the Treasury grapples with the ongoing debt ceiling issue. Plus, the summary of economic projections will be watched out by markets.

Since June 2022, the Fed, under the QT program, has been slowly shrinking its balance sheet, which had zoomed to a record of $9 trillion post COVID when the bank bought trillions of dollars worth of assets, including bonds, to support markets.

The minutes of the January Fed meeting showed policymakers discussed pausing or slowing the reversal of the balance sheet expansion that greased the crypto bull market of 2020-21. So, the possibility of Powell hinting the same later today cannot be ruled out.

«Late last year, Fed Chair Powell hinted that the end of QT was coming in 2025. If he mentions it in tomorrow’s [Wednesday’s] statement or press conference (I imagine someone will ask him), that would end up signalling that we’re in a new monetary regime, and that the Fed stands ready to resume additional debt purchases should QE become necessary again,» Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter said in Tuesday’s edition.

«While renewed QE [quantitive easing] unlikely any time soon, the additional liquidity from a large buyer (the Fed) coming back into the market to replace maturing holdings would be good news,» Acheson added, noting that the end of QT would be a timely move to avoid liquidity glitches in the Treasury market that faces $9 trillion in debt maturity this year.

New York Life Investments’ Economist Lauren Goodwin voiced a similar opinion, saying a slightly earlier end to the balance sheet runoff could provide the market with a dovish signal it is looking for.

Traders over decentralized betting platform Polymarket see a 100% chance that the Fed will end the QT program before May. The betting on the same will resolve in «Yes» if the central bank increases the amount of securities it holds outright week-over-week by the end of April.

Bank of America predicts end of QT

Several investment banks, including Bank of America, expect the Fed to end QT in a meeting characterized by uncertain economic outlook mainly stemming from President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

«Our rates strategists expect the statement to indicate that the Fed is pausing QT until the debt ceiling is resolved, as suggested in the January meeting minutes. They do not expect to restart after the debt ceiling is addressed, but the announcement won’t be made until later this year,» Bank of America’s March 14 client note said.

A pause in QT could put downward pressure on the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, the so-called risk-free rate, galvanizing demand for riskier assets.

Watch out for stagflation hints

Trump’s tariffs have revved up inflation risks while posing risks to economic growth, a stagflationary situation, and the Fed’s summary of economic projections (SEP) could reflect that. A nod to stagflation could mean a delay in further rate cuts, potentially limiting bitcoin gains from a QT pause announcement.

According to Acheson, chances of a stagflationary adjustment in the SEP – lower GDP projections and higher core PCE estimates, with more policymakers citing upside risks to inflation – are high.

«If, indeed, we get that stagflationary shift in official projections, the market is unlikely to be happy. To some extent, these are starting to be priced in – but confirmation that the Fed is likely to push rate cuts even further out could startle those counting on liquidity injections,» Acheson said.

The recently released U.S. retail sales and regional manufacturing indices revealed signs of economic weakness, Meanwhile, forward-looking inflation metrics have been rising, likely adjusting to Trump’s tariffs.

Bank of America put it best: «The combination of signal from the latest data and policies enacted to date should result in the Fed downgrading growth and upgrading inflation this year, a small nod to stagflation.»

«The dot plot should still show two cuts in ’25 and ’26,» the investment bank added.

Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium is set to start its own token issuance platform in the coming weeks to drive more revenue to the already-popular trading service.

Raydium’s native RAY token is up 13% in the past 24 hours, beating a 1.62% gain in the broader market tracked by the CoinDesk 100 (CD100) index.

Raydium’s LaunchLab will initially resemble the hit token issuance platform Pump.Fun, Blockworks first reported. Though developers say it will have several added features that make it more appealing for token launches.

LaunchLab will have three types of bonding curves that match demand and price for a token and will let third-party UIs set their fees. A bonding curve is an automatic system that adjusts prices as tokens are bought or sold on DEXs.

Raydium developer @0xINFRA said in an X post that the service could be easily added to applications that already use Raydium’s existing services — such as AMM v4, CP-Swap, CLMM pools.

“We’re not here to compete with launchpads currently using Raydium — LaunchLab makes on-chain token launches easier for teams, offering a neutral, permissionless infra,” he said.

Raydium is currently generating over $1 million in fees every day from trading across all its liquidity pools, not just those of Pump.fun tokens. However, over 30% of Raydium’s daily trading volume came from Pump.fun tokens as of February, according to a Dune dashboard.

Pump.Fun, which lets anyone issue a token for less than $2 in capital, after which they choose the number of tokens, theme, and meme picture to accompany it. These tokens are automatically listed for trading on Raydium after reaching a $69,000 market capitalization.

But, in late February, Pump.Fun apparently moved away from using Raydium as its migration platform by launching its AMM tool (meaning tokens would be available for further trading on Pump instead of Raydium).

The two teams do not have an official partnership in place and haven’t publicly commented on the recent developments.

Meanwhile, @0xINFRA shut down early rumors of LaunchLab being a mere Pump.Fun fork.

“Not a Pump fork, LaunchLab’s PoC UI mimics it for familiarity, but it’s far more versatile,” he said in the X post. “It’s the first of a tool suite—more models in progress to tackle diverse liquidity needs. Open to feedback and collabs for custom models. Not about stealing Pump’s users—it’s about enriching Solana,” he added.

The U.S. State of North Dakota is close to creating a licensing regime for crypto ATMs after its Senate passed a bill that provides a regulatory framework for the industry.

Originally introduced on Jan. 15, House Bill 1447 aims to protect consumers from scams involving crypto ATMs by mandating operators to issue on-screen fraud warnings to users, obtain money transmitter licenses, use blockchain analytics software to detect and combat fraud, as well as submit quarterly reports on kiosk locations and transactions.

Additionally, operators must appoint a compliance officer.

A report by TRM Labs found that crypto ATMs have facilitated at least $160 million in illicit transactions since 2019, CoinDesk previously reported, with law enforcement worldwide viewing them as a major money laundering and scam risk.

FTC data also shows a nearly tenfold rise in bitcoin ATM scam losses since 2020.

In the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority, the country’s markets regulator, has been increasing scrutiny on the sector with crackdowns on unregistered operators.

In 2024, the FCA charged Olumide Osunkoya for running illegal crypto ATMs that processed $3.4 million, marking the first such prosecution in the country. Osunkoya was recently sentenced to four years for his role in the illegal crypto ATM network, and was also convicted for forgery, using false identity documents, and possessing criminal property.

With rising fraud and regulatory scrutiny, the number of crypto ATMs are not growing despite BTC’s price growth in 2024. Market data from CoinATMRadar shows that the number of crypto ATMs in the U.S. has been roughly flat since 2022.