Tonight's Fed meeting, don't just focus on interest rate cuts.

What is really worth being wary of is the dark thunder of liquidity. Although the Fed stopped shrinking its balance sheet (QT) in early December, the pace of the Treasury's frenzied bond issuance has not changed, and the money in the market is still tight. Mobility problems are starting to keep people awake again.

There are two factions fighting in the market right now. Danske Bank is more Buddhist, and feels that liquidity has not yet reached the point of burning eyebrows, and the Fed is likely to delay gradual quantitative easing (QE) until 2026, or fine-tune the reserve balance rate (IORB) to cope with the past.

But Bank of America (BofA) threw a bombshell prediction - Powell could make a big deal at this meeting: launch the "Reserve Management Bond Purchase Program" (RMP). What do you mean? It is that starting in January next year, the Fed will buy about $45 billion in short-term Treasury bonds every month. If the reinvestment of MBS maturity income is also included, the purchase size may soar to $60 billion per month.

It must be clear that RMP is not the same as traditional quantitative easing. QE is to buy long-term bonds when interest rates are close to zero to stimulate the economy, and RMP is to buy short-term bonds to dredge the "blood vessels" of the money market and prevent a repeat of the liquidity crisis in September 2019. The goal is to keep the reserves of the banking system "sufficient" and not let the entire financial system get stuck.

Of course, this trick will definitely attract scolding - hats such as "printing money in disguise" and "inflation is coming" will definitely fly all over the sky. But now the repurchase market has begun to tighten, instead of waiting for something to happen, it is better to give the market a reassurance in advance.

So the highlight of Thursday morning may not be the interest rate decision at all, but how to play the balance sheet. For BTC and ETH, liquidity is the real anchor of pricing. If the Fed really dares to open the floodgates and release water, even if it is not nominally called QE, you know how the crypto market will react.

The market is never short of stories, what is lacking is real money.