On April 1, 2026, the Goldman Sachs analyst team released the latest macro report, directly concluding that under current conditions, the likelihood of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates this year is significantly low. On the same trading day, multiple seemingly unrelated market clues appeared simultaneously: Brent crude oil prices fell below $101 per barrel, European Central Bank interest rate futures priced in only about 63 basis points of interest rate hikes for the entire year, and Bitcoin's average transaction fee dropped below $0.4. On one hand, there is the rollercoaster trend of crude oil prices after geopolitical conflicts, and on the other, the Federal Reserve's policy inertia of not wanting to raise rates solely in response to short-term oil price shocks; this tension twists traditional macro narratives and micro changes in the crypto market into a "dark line" throughout the same day.

Oil Price Rollercoaster and Wall Street's Repricing of Interest Rates

Around April 1, Brent crude oil was pushed to the forefront by expectations of geopolitical conflict and supply disruptions, but the price that day fell back below $101 per barrel, contrasting sharply with previous panic over "sustained high oil prices." The set of data cited by Goldman Sachs actually marks an emotional turning point from "extreme tension" to "relative easing": oil prices are now seen more as echoes of a phase-shifting shock rather than a structural trend.

In this context, Goldman Sachs emphasized that even with significant fluctuations in oil prices, the Federal Reserve has not—and finds it difficult to—quickly shift to a hawkish stance based solely on the variable of oil prices. The report reiterated a repeatedly validated experience: while short-term shocks to energy prices will certainly push up headline inflation, as long as wages, employment, and core service prices have not formed a self-reinforcing spiral, monetary authorities tend to prefer "observing rather than acting immediately." This is also the direct logical basis for its judgment that "the likelihood of rate hikes this year is low"—not to deny the disturbance of oil prices but to emphasize the Federal Reserve's tolerance for temporary supply shocks.

Signals from the European market provide a supplementary note for this logic. The European Central Bank interest rate futures pricing in only about 63 basis points for interest rate hikes for the year indicates that within another major currency system, traders are also betting on a "more moderate tightening path." Whether for the European Central Bank or the Federal Reserve, the market is wagering real money that the space for significantly tightening policies is much smaller than the emotional peaks of a few weeks ago.

Goldman Sachs' Confidence: From Inflation Starting Point to Historical Lessons

The key assertion made in the report is: "The current economic starting point significantly reduces the probability of inflation spillover." The so-called "starting point" refers to the anchored states of inflation levels, wage growth, employment structure, and inflation expectations. Compared to an era of high inflation and high wages with automatic indexing, although the U.S. economy has experienced a rise in inflation, inflation expectations remain within a controllable range for the central bank, and while the labor market is tight, wage clauses that automatically link to oil prices are not widespread, making it more difficult for disruptions in energy prices to spill over into a comprehensive and sustained price spiral.

Based on this, Goldman Sachs reiterates a judgment that is prominently featured in the report: "The Federal Reserve typically does not sharply tighten monetary policy merely due to oil price shocks." Behind this lies both a summation of historical experiences and a realistic consideration of current political and economic constraints. Simply put, fluctuations in a single commodity, especially oil deemed a "supply-side event," are unlikely to trigger a cycle of aggressive interest rate hikes on their own—unless they have permeated more widely into the price system through wages and expectations.

Compared to the oil crisis of the 1970s, the macro environment in this round of shocks is fundamentally different. Back then, the U.S. faced a "stagflation" situation of high inflation and high unemployment, where oil embargoes and skyrocketing prices coincided with strong union power and automatically rising wages, causing supply shocks to rapidly evolve into widespread inflation. Today, although geopolitical tensions are also pushing up oil prices, the overall demand structure is more dispersed, with manufacturing outsourcing and the rise of the digital economy weakening the transmission chain of energy costs to end prices, and employment forms are more flexible, with collective bargaining power much weaker than in those years. These differences form the basis for Goldman Sachs to be confident in its negative view that "oil prices alone will trigger a new round of interest rate hikes."

Cooling on the Blockchain: Another Layer of Meaning Behind Low Fees

On the same timeline, on-chain data provided another set of signals: the average transaction fee on the Bitcoin network dropped below $0.4. This level starkly contrasts with the high-fee environment of previous congested phases, resulting from both a technical alleviation of block creation and memory pool pressure, as well as a reflection of the cooling of trading behavior itself. Particularly on a high-information-density date like April 1, the "bottoming" of transaction fees seems more like a barometer, signaling that funds are selectively pausing the lever-up and high-frequency betting.

The decline in fees can be explained in multiple ways: on one hand, there is alleviation of on-chain congestion, with backlog transactions being cleared and transfer demand returning to normal; on the other hand, reduced speculative positions and cooling of short-term high-frequency trading will also significantly decrease the demand for those willing to pay high fees to "secure positions." Regardless of the explanation, they all point to the same macro meaning—within the layers of macro uncertainty and policy observation, the impatience of market participants is decreasing, and risk tolerance is becoming more cautious.

Looking at Goldman Sachs' judgment on interest rate expectations alongside changes in on-chain costs reveals a subtle linkage: once the mainstream narrative shifts from "rate hikes anytime" to "hiking difficulty increases," the long-term discounting pressure on risk assets marginally eases, but the short-term trading structure may not immediately shift to extreme optimism. The decline in Bitcoin transaction fees precisely indicates that until liquidity expectations are materially translated into an influx of new funds, on-chain behavior has entered a transitional period of "low noise, low cost," where more funds choose to respond to this expectation repricing by waiting rather than rushing in.

A Day of Information Resonance: Wall Street Reports and Chinese Market Opinion

Breaking down April 1 into a timeline reveals multiple overlapping curves: Brent crude oil prices consolidating below $101 per barrel, European interest rate futures narrowing their pricing for interest rate hikes to about 63 basis points, Bitcoin transaction fees falling below $0.4, along with the simultaneous diffusion of the Goldman Sachs report across traditional and new media. These signals, which originally belonged to different assets and groups, were compressed into the same day in terms of timing, creating a strong sense of information resonance.

As one of the core voices of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs' report was quickly translated and interpreted by numerous Chinese financial and crypto media after being released through English channels such as Reuters and Bloomberg. In the dissemination process, the conclusion "the likelihood of raising rates this year is low" was continually amplified, while the more complex premises and risk alerts in the report were simplified or even neglected in multiple retellings. This cross-linguistic, cross-market reprocessing transformed what was originally a technical macro analysis into a more emotionally charged "bearish on rate hikes" narrative.

In the traditional market, institutional investors are more focused on interest rate curves and inflation paths, tending to extract portions of the report related to government bond yields, public debt valuations, and corporate financing costs; whereas in the crypto market, participants more easily latch onto snippets highly relevant to risk asset valuations like "rates have peaked" and "pressure from tightening liquidity eases." Both groups selectively amplify the narrative segment of "bearish on rate hikes," while each overlooks the report's reservations about potential inflation resurgence and policy reorientation—this is also the most common deviation amplification mechanism when information circulates between different markets.

From the Shadow of Rate Hikes to Liquidity Expectations: Next Steps in Crypto Trading Structures

Combining Goldman Sachs' pessimistic judgment on interest rate hikes, falling oil prices, and decreasing Bitcoin on-chain fees, this entire set of signals collectively points to: in the short term, the probability of a drastic tightening of the global liquidity environment decreases, with risk preference shifting from "defensive extreme scenarios" back to "pricing smoothing tightening." On a macro level, the market no longer pays a premium for an additional round of strong interest rate hikes; on a micro level, crypto traders are reassessing leverage and duration in an environment of declining costs and converging volatility.

It is important to emphasize that Goldman Sachs' report stating "the likelihood of rate hikes this year is low" deliberately avoids any precise probabilities or specific path predictions, and related briefs did not provide detailed figures for U.S. PCE or GDP, nor did they attempt to quantify the probabilities of the Federal Reserve's actions at each meeting. Some historical comparisons that the market re-quoted, such as crisis cases from specific years and specific figures, also remain to be verified. Before these details are fully clarified, treating the report as absolute proof that "interest rate hikes will never happen" is clearly an irresponsible interpretation.

If interest rate hikes indeed hit the pause button in the future, the most likely change in the crypto market will not be an overnight full-scale bull market reboot, but rather a preemptive adjustment of trading structures: in the short term, extreme leveraged positions in futures and perpetual contracts will likely continue to deflate, with on-chain activity leaning towards real settlements and mid-to-long-term holdings in a low-fee environment; in the medium term, if interest rates stabilize at high levels without further increases, capital may shift from pure price speculation to longer-term allocations towards infrastructure, public chain ecosystems, and cash flow-positive projects, gradually restoring the ability to price according to the dimension of "time."

For investors, treating April 1 as an information node rather than the pivot itself may be more prudent: recognizing the logical connections between the retreat of oil prices, Goldman Sachs' bearish sentiment on rate hikes, and the decline in on-chain costs, but also realizing that these signals currently pertain more to repricing the "risk ceiling," and there are still many macro and policy hurdles to cross before restarting a brand new liquidity cycle.

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