Goldman Sachs suddenly changed its stance, reversing its judgment on the Federal Reserve's September interest rate decision from "maintaining interest rates" to "raising by 25 basis points," and clearly emphasized that this adjustment "is driven more by financial market pricing than by economic outlook; investors currently generally expect a rate hike." A change in the interest rate path forecast by a globally significant investment bank itself serves as a signal: it is not that the fundamentals have suddenly deteriorated, but rather that market participants are rewriting asset discount models with higher risk-free rates. Recently, several Chinese financial and cryptocurrency media outlets quoted news from Jinshi, amplifying this reversal and elevating the narrative of "one more hike in September" and "high interest rates for a longer time" from a mere assumption among traders to a discussion point within circles. The Federal Reserve's policy interest rate serves as the anchor for the pricing of all USD assets, and for each 25 basis point increase in the risk-free rate, valuations and position structures of global risk assets must be recalculated. Historical experience is very clear: during interest rate hikes and a strengthening dollar, high-volatility assets like BTC and ETH often come under pressure, as funds prefer to seek refuge in dollar assets with fixed coupons. Goldman Sachs' reversal to align with market pricing effectively stamps and confirms this repricing process on the market, laying the ground for the tightening of risk preferences for cryptocurrency assets and the possible pathways for USD funds to flow back from on-chain to traditional markets.

Goldman Sachs Forced to Change Stance: Rate Hikes Become the Main Theme

This reversal by Goldman Sachs is essentially not a "sudden overturning of research conclusions," but rather being gradually compelled towards a consensus by the pricing of the interest rate market. Recently, whether in interest rate futures or interest rate swaps, the market has pointed towards a scenario of a 25 basis point rate hike by the Federal Reserve in September. Goldman Sachs publicly acknowledged that the main reason for adjusting its forecast is "financial market pricing and general investor expectations," rather than a sudden change in economic outlook. In other words, the investment bank's model has not undergone dramatic changes; what has changed is its necessity to align with the already formed market consensus— the interest rate market has already factored in the script of "one more hike and interest rates staying high for longer" into pricing, and Goldman Sachs is merely confirming it in hindsight.

This process of correcting from "institutional judgment" to "market pricing" reinforces a signal: regarding core variables like interest rates that affect the discounting of global assets, asset management firms and hedge funds use the predictions of large investment banks as a baseline, but the true direction is dominated by collective bets in futures and swaps. Goldman Sachs' change of stance effectively shifts the narrative of the "high interest rate maintenance period" from the trader community to a broader level of asset allocation, repositioning the expected upper limits for global risk assets, including BTC and ETH - during the 2022 rate hike cycle, high-volatility assets had already been suppressed by aggressive tightening, and as interest rates again become the main theme, the market must assume similar suppressive forces will continue to exist and operate in a long-term manner on the new interest rate platform.

More Expensive USD Returns: Bitcoin Pricing Re-discounted

When Goldman Sachs brought the "25 basis point hike in September" to the forefront, what was truly adjusted in the markets was the most core parameter in the entire asset pricing framework—the Federal Reserve's policy rate. This rate is both the pricing anchor for global USD assets and the benchmark for risk-free rates; once the anchor point rises, the coupons and expected returns of US Treasuries and various USD assets immediately increase, making them "more reliable" options in an investment portfolio. For asset managers, reallocating across stocks, bonds, commodities, and alternative assets including cryptocurrencies in response to changes in the interest rate environment is a standard response: higher coupon USD assets mean that with the same risk budget, more certain returns can be locked in, and high-volatility, high-drawdown assets must naturally accept more stringent valuation scrutiny.

This logic applied to BTC and ETH translates to a re-elevation of the discount rate. They are essentially high-beta assets that rely on narratives and risk premiums for support, with no cash flow; when risk-free rates rise, investors give a higher discount to the future "story," willing to accept a narrower price range for the same long-term uncertainty. Historically, each round of a strengthening dollar and rising US Treasury yields has exerted valuation correction pressure on such assets. The resulting balance is that global funds reconsider between "more expensive but more stable" US Treasuries and dollar assets versus "more volatile but higher potential returns" cryptocurrencies: a portion of off-chain USD and on-chain USD funds are pulled from exchanges and high-leverage structures, towards traditional assets with clearer coupons or on-chain assets with actual yields, while another portion retains only tactical positions, downgrading BTC and ETH from "long-term holdings" to "swing trading," redefining their risk-return boundaries in a new world of higher discount rates.

Heating Rate Hike Expectations: Difficult Choices for Leveraged Bulls

When Goldman Sachs' prediction of a September rate hike spreads within circles, what often gets repriced first is not the spot BTC and ETH, but their leveraged layers above. The perpetual contract funding rate intertwines with spot prices, risk-free rates, and leverage demand—once rate expectations lean towards "more expensive USD," the funding rate becomes a more complex representation of market sentiment, forced to converge towards higher USD coupons. In such an environment, funding rates and futures basis are compressed, term structure premiums narrow, and risk-free arbitrage space shrinks. The BTC and ETH futures basis, which had repeatedly approached or even dipped below zero during the 2022 tightening cycle, serves as a historical reminder of the contraction faced by leveraged bulls and hedging funds.

Higher USD interest rates directly push up the costs of leveraging through borrowing USD or on-chain USD tokens. For highly leveraged bulls, this is not merely a matter of interest, but rather a dual squeeze resonating with price volatility: one side is the rising financing costs, lowering the cost-effectiveness of strategies; the other side is the heightened uncertainty of interest rates raising overall risk discounts, making drawdowns harder to bear. Consequently, funds originally willing to roll over at positive funding rates and positive basis begin to shorten leverage duration, reduce multipliers, or even revert to only making directional options, creating "light asset" exposure. At a time when risk aversion is increasing, more institutions and large players shift towards increasing put options or protective option positions, leading to a rise in the implied volatility of short-term contracts, significantly increasing the costs of downside protection, and the pricing labels in the options market become a risk tax bill that leveraged bulls must face. In such a structure, the bullish narrative of BTC and ETH is no longer driven by spot sentiment but is rewritten as a trading game regarding the leverage death line by expectations for interest rates, funding rates, basis, and short-end implied volatility.

On-chain USD Seeking Yield: From Market-Making Funds to Coupon Assets

When Goldman Sachs changed its stance to bet on a 25 basis point rate hike in September, the on-chain USD-denominated assets quietly began rewriting their task division. Rate hikes signify an increase in risk-free rates, causing traditional market USD money market funds and short-term treasury yields to rise, providing clear and verifiable coupon ranges. For crypto traders accustomed to using USD-pegged tokens as accounting units and collateral, the "cash" on hand becomes not just fuel for market-making and intraday speculation but a ticket that can exchange for higher certainty yields. The result is that increasingly more on-chain USD begins to flow out of liquidity pools and high-frequency trading positions, towards scenarios that can directly reflect interest rate environments in on-chain coupons, rather than relying simply on volatility for short-term speculative stories.

This migratory path is not a mere figment of imagination. In past tightening cycles, some funds have withdrawn from centralized exchanges, reallocating to tokenized products, RWA protocols, and highly reputable CeFi yield plans backed by US Treasuries and Treasury bills, thereby rebuilding a curve of "interest rate assets" on-chain. As rate hike expectations rise again, market-making and intraday trading funds are passively reduced in size, while actively raising return thresholds, decreasing exposure to long-tail tokens and high-volatility assets, causing the liquidity of these varieties to increasingly depend on a small number of participants willing to bear high risks. In contrast, on-chain and off-chain products linked to US Treasury yields, capable of distributing coupons periodically, are poised to become new liquidity black holes, siphoning away the USD chips originally supporting BTC, ETH, and broader risk assets, compelling the entire market to impose an additional constraint line of "interest-bearing assets competing for funds" beyond the "leverage game."

The Game Has Just Begun: Which Signals Will Determine the Next Round of Trends

This time, Goldman Sachs' "change of stance" aligns its views with the consensus of interest rate markets and investors, rather than announcing a radical change in economic outlook; it is merely a pawn in the chess game of interest rate hike expectations. What truly drives the following trajectories for BTC, ETH, and on-chain funds are results from future Federal Reserve meetings, speeches from officials, and inflation and employment data constantly reshaping the interest rate path: on one hand, the narrative of "high interest rate maintenance period" presses down on valuation discounting and funding costs, while on the other hand, the "policy may shift ahead of schedule" can be repriced at any time, with these two storylines repeatedly tugging at prices and positions. For traders, the key lies not in focusing on Goldman Sachs itself, but in closely following the implied policy expectations in interest rate futures and US Treasury yields, observing whether the inflows and outflows of cryptocurrency ETFs sync with changes in macro risk preferences, and continually tracking the total scale of USD-pegged tokens and changes in reserves at exchanges to identify inflection points in risk preferences and the direction of the next trend.

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