Bitcoin's Breakout, The Fed's September Decision, & The New CME CF Indices

In a CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded September 3, 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk, Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, and CF Benchmarks Head of Product Thomas Erdosi.

Fed rate hike odds for the September 16 meeting swung from roughly two-thirds to a coin flip inside 24 hours, after Governor Waller signaled support for holding steady and Chair Warsh's Jackson Hole remarks got read as more hawkish than intended. The panel works through what the data between now and the decision, NFP tomorrow and CPI on September 11, would need to show to settle the debate, then turns to Bitcoin's push through $80,000 on the broadest market breadth of the year. The back half covers the Middle East-driven oil spike and its interaction with the debasement trade, a sizable new Treasury buyback program, and closes with a first look at two new benchmarks: the CME CF Crypto Market Index and CME CF Emerging Crypto Index, plus the launch of the CF Benchmarks Oracle for on-chain price verification.

Chapters:

00:00 – Disclaimer & Team Welcome

00:49 – September Rate Hike Odds Swing to a Coin Flip

03:09 – Base Case: Hold, With Oil as the Wildcard

05:41 – Warsh's Ambiguity and the FOMC's Historical Hiking Pattern

13:24 – Bitcoin's Push Above $80K

16:02 – Options Positioning Turns Less Lopsided to the Downside

17:23 – Key Levels: Eyeing a Push Toward $90K

18:40 – ETF Flows and MicroStrategy's Return to Buying

24:20 – CME vs. IBIT: Where the Call Buying Is Concentrated