Bitcoin Price Events Calendar

FOMC meetings (Federal Reserve interest rate decisions)

The Federal Open Market Committee meets eight times a year to set the federal funds rate. Bitcoin, like other risk assets, tends to react to whether the Fed sounds more hawkish (favoring higher rates, generally a headwind for risk assets) or more dovish (favoring rate cuts, generally supportive). The March, June, September and December meetings also include the Summary of Economic Projections — the "dot plot" — which tends to draw an outsized reaction because it signals the Fed's own rate-path expectations, not just the current decision.

CPI (Consumer Price Index)

Released monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI is the US government's primary inflation gauge. A hotter-than-expected reading can push back rate-cut expectations (typically a headwind for Bitcoin); a cooler reading can do the opposite. In practice, Bitcoin's realized volatility in the hour around a CPI print has historically been well above its average hour — but the direction has flipped repeatedly across releases.

US jobs report (non-farm payrolls)

Published on the first Friday of most months, this is the single most-watched US labor market release. Strong hiring with sticky wage growth tends to support a "higher for longer" rate outlook; a weak report tends to revive rate-cut bets. Because the Fed is explicitly watching both inflation and employment, this report can move markets almost as much as CPI itself.

Initial jobless claims

A weekly, lower-magnitude cousin of the jobs report, released by the Department of Labor every Thursday. A single week rarely moves markets much on its own, but a multi-week upward trend is one of the earliest signals of labor-market softening — which can shift Fed rate-cut expectations well before the monthly jobs report confirms it.

Bitcoin options expiry

Large batches of Bitcoin options contracts expire monthly (and in larger size quarterly) on major derivatives exchanges. As expiry approaches, "max pain" dynamics and dealer hedging flows can pin or push price toward strikes with the most open interest, and realized volatility often ticks up in the hours immediately before and after expiry — independent of any news event.

The Bitcoin halving

Roughly every four years (every 210,000 blocks), Bitcoin's block reward — the new BTC paid to miners — is cut in half. This slows the rate of new supply entering circulation. Every halving to date has been followed by a new all-time high within the following cycle, though each cycle's percentage gains have been smaller than the last as the asset has matured — a pattern researchers call diminishing returns. Use the Halving Cycle Comparator to see all four cycles plotted side by side.