The Fed Held at 3.75% and Two Members Voted to Hike — 5.05% on the 10-Year Leaves Bitcoin $79,220 to Defend

The Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.75% to 4.00% on Wednesday, and the vote was 10 to 2. Both dissents came from officials who wanted a quarter-point hike. No one on the committee voted for a cut.

That is the whole story in one line, and the market has spent the two sessions since arguing with it: the October 28 FOMC statement says activity is expanding at a strong pace and inflation remains elevated, then closes with a sentence that reads like a warning shot. “The Committee will deliver price stability.”

Two dissents, both in the same direction

Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack voted against the action because they preferred to raise the range by a quarter point, to 4.00% to 4.25%, according to the statement. That is not the usual split. September 16 was a unanimous quarter-point hike, the first increase since 2023, and the September language described activity as expanding at a “solid pace.” October upgraded that word to “strong.”

The inflation backdrop explains the impatience. September consumer inflation came in at 3.7%, up from 3.4% in August, as reported alongside the decision. CME FedWatch had roughly 90% odds of no change priced before 2 p.m. Eastern, so the hold itself was not the event. The two dissents were.

The next scheduled decision is December 8 and 9. After two votes for a hike at this meeting, the burden of proof has shifted from the statement to the data.

The bond market answered before the equity open

The Treasury curve did the talking. The 10-year closed at 5.05% on October 28, up from 4.99% the day before, and the 2-year at 4.67%, per the Treasury’s own daily yield curve. The 10-year peaked at 5.31% on October 5 and has not come close to giving that back.

This is the number that competes with bitcoin directly. A 5.05% risk-free yield sets a hurdle that a non-yielding asset has to beat with price appreciation, and it does that while the Fed is telling you the next move could still be up.

Bitcoin: 28 October sessions closed above $80,000

Every completed session in October closed above $80,000. The weakest was $80,150.56 on October 26. The strongest was $86,530.00 on October 2, the same day the month printed its high of $87,220.00 on Binance.

Then came the air pocket. The October 24 low was $79,220.74, October 26 wicked to $79,368.67, and the range between those two prints is the only support the month actually built. Wednesday’s session closed at $81,343.50 after tagging $81,823.00, which looked like the market accepting the pause.

Thursday undid it. The session opened at $81,343.51, printed a high of $81,380.01, then sold to $79,710.00 before stabilising near $79,845. That is the first October trade under $80,000, it is 8.4% below the October 2 high, and it sits below the 20-day average close of $81,933.91. The bid that showed up on Monday and Tuesday did not survive the second day after the statement.

Two ETF books, two different stories

The spot bitcoin funds took in about $110.3 million on October 26, all of it through BlackRock’s IBIT, then about $176.0 million on October 27, with $151.5 million into IBIT and $24.5 million into Fidelity’s FBTC, SoSoValue figures put the two-day recovery near $286 million. That clawed October’s net deficit back to roughly $26 million from a far deeper hole, and it only partly offsets the $773.5 million that left on October 22 and 23, including a $635.6 million single-day exit.

Zoom out and the month is a shadow of September’s $2.65 billion of net inflows. Year to date the funds are still positive by roughly $850 million, which is not a collapse, but it is not accumulation either. And the two-day rebound was effectively one issuer. A bid that narrow is a position, not a trend.

Ether is the other book, and it is being closed. U.S. spot ether ETFs lost about $149 million across Monday and Tuesday, taking October’s net redemptions to roughly $1.32 billion after four straight weeks of outflows. ETH traded at $2,306 on Thursday, 17% under the October 2 high of $2,777.33 and $23 above the October 24 low of $2,282.46.

What decides it from here

One level matters: $79,220.74. It is the October 24 low, the bottom of the only range this month has built, and Thursday’s tape came within $490 of it. A daily close below that print breaks the October structure and converts two dissents into a December pricing problem. Hold it, and the pause starts to look like the floor rather than the start of the next leg down.

On the other side, $81,823.00 is the first close above Wednesday’s high that would put the post-decision sell-off behind the market, and $84,377.21, the October 22 high, is the ceiling that has to fall before the $87,220 high is even in the conversation. The 20-day average at $81,934 sits between the two and has been rejecting price since the middle of the month.

The calendar is thin but not empty. November inflation data lands before the December 8 and 9 meeting, the Treasury curve is the live vote on whether the pause was enough, and the ETF tape prints every session at 4 p.m. Eastern. Watch the $1.32 billion ether outflow number stop growing before you treat any of this as a bottom. Until then the Fed has held, two of its voters have not, and bitcoin is the asset that has to live with both facts.