The Fed's every move is increasingly impacting the crypto market. Some analysts believe that if the Federal Reserve maintains its interest rate policy unchanged in the first quarter of 2026, Bitcoin could come under pressure and drop to around $70,000, while Ethereum may also decline to $2,400.

However, things might not be that simple. The Federal Reserve officially ended its quantitative tightening cycle on December 1 and instead launched the "Reserve Management Purchase" plan—commonly known as RMPs. Under this new plan, the Fed will purchase approximately $40 billion worth of short-term government bonds each month. Many market participants openly state that this is essentially quantitative easing in disguise, and its impact on liquidity should not be underestimated.

If the RMPs operation continues into the first quarter of 2026, the additional liquidity could flow into risk assets, including the cryptocurrency market. According to analyst Jeff Mei's forecast, in this scenario, Bitcoin could rise to a range of $92,000 to $98,000. Ethereum's performance is also promising, benefiting from ongoing Layer 2 scaling technology iterations and increased attractiveness of the DeFi ecosystem, potentially pushing it to $3,600.

More importantly, over $50 billion in ETF funds have already been flowing into the market continuously, and institutional investors' willingness to deploy is also increasing. The combination of these two forces is likely to further boost market enthusiasm. Therefore, the ultimate direction will still depend on the specific actions of the Federal Reserve in the first quarter of next year.