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Fed headlines central bank rate decisions, Gemini earnings: Crypto Week Ahead

Your look at what's coming in the week starting March 16.

By Francisco Rodrigues|Edited by Sheldon Reback Mar 16, 2026, 8:42 a.m.

U.S. Federal Reserve headquarters (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk) — The Fed is among seven central banks with rate decisions this week. (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)

What to know:

Crypto Week Ahead is a comprehensive list of what's coming up in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, as well as the major macroeconomic events that will influence digital asset markets. For an updated daily email reminder of what's expected, click here to sign up for Crypto Daybook Americas.

The week could prove pivotal for markets, including bitcoin BTC$73,685.87, with the U.S. Federal Reserve among seven major central banks set to announce interest-rate decisions while war-driven oil price gains threaten to reignite inflation in the global economy.

Most of the central banks are expected to keep interest rates steady, but hawkish comments from policymakers, driven by inflation concerns, could trigger downside volatility across risk assets.

While reflationary environments have historically supported bitcoin, rising inflation expectations are pushing bond yields higher and tightening financial conditions, André Dragosch, European head of research at Bitwise, told CoinDesk. Those conditions generally make riskier investments less attractive.

Still, geopolitical tensions are currently dominating the market backdrop, according to Dragosch. Historically, such shocks tend to fade quickly, and bitcoin has often delivered above-average returns after periods of elevated geopolitical risk.

“Investors should generally fade these kinds of events and view them as short-term buying opportunities,” Dragosch said.

Bitcoin is trading at what Dragosch called the “biggest macro discount” on record, with sentiment near FTX-collapse lows. “We are probably closer to the bottom than the top,” he said.

What to Watch

(All times ET)

Crypto
- March 17: Lava Network (LAVA) to expand with 17 new chain integrations and nine new blockchain ecosystems.
- March 19: Walrus (WAL) final deadline for Tusky users to migrate their data.
- March 23: Backpack token generation event occurs, with 250 million tokens (25% of total supply) to be distributed.
Macro
- March 16, 8:30 a.m.: Canada consumer price index (CPI) YoY for February (Prev. 2.3%)
- March 17, 4:30 a.m.: Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate decision est. 4.1% (Prev. 3.85%)
- March 17, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Pending Home Sales MoM for February (Prev. -0.8%)
- March 18, 6 a.m.: Eurozone consumer price index (CPI) for February. MoM est. 0.7% (Prev. -0.6%); YoY est. 1.9% (Prev. 1.7%)
- March 18, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. PPI for February. YoY est. 3.7% (Prev. 3.6%); Core PPI YoY est. 3.2% (Prev. 3.6%)
- March 18, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada interest rate decision Est. 2.25% (Prev. 2.25%)
- March 18, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Factory Orders MoM for January (Prev. -0.7%)
- March 18, 2:00 p.m.: Fed interest rate decision Est. 3.50%-3.75% (Prev. 3.50%-3.75%); FOMC economic projections
- March 18, 2:30 p.m.: Fed Chair press conference
- March 18, 5:30 p.m.: Central Bank of Brazil Selic rate decision Est. 14.50% (Prev. 15%)
- March 18, 11 p.m.: Bank of Japan interest rate decision Est. 0.75% (Prev. 0.75%)
- March 19, 4:30 a.m.: Swiss National Bank interest rate decision Est. 0% (Prev. 0%)
- March 19, 8 a.m.: Bank of England interest rate decision Est. 3.75% (Prev. 3.75%).
- March 19, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for week ending March 14 Est. 215K (Prev. 213K)
- March 19, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index for March (Prev. 16.3)
- March 19, 9:15 a.m.: ECB interest rate decision for main refinancing rate Est. 2.15% Prev. 2.15%
- March 19, 4:30 p.m.: Fed Balance Sheet for week ending March 18 (Prev. $6.65T)
- March 20, 8:30 a.m.: Canada PPI YoY (Prev. 5.4%); MoM (Prev. 2.7%)

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

March 16: Bakkt Holdings (BKKT), post-market, -$0.47
March 16: Bitcoin Depot (BTM), pre-market, -$0.47
March 16: Cango (CANG), post-market, -$0.34
March 17: CEA Industries (BNC), post-market, $0.69
March 18: Bitfarms (BITF), pre-market, -$0.03
March 19: Gemini Space Station (GEMI), post-market, -$0.91
March 20: BitFuFu (FUFU), pre-market, $0.01

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
- March 17: Mantle (MNT) to host State of Mind Ep. 07, discussing CeDeFi milestones and DeFi strategies.
- March 18: Jupiter (JUP) to hold its weekly Planetary Call community session with team updates.
- March 18: THETA$0.1833 head of marketing & PR to discuss ecosystem updates.
- Decentraland DAO is voting on whether to allow registered users to customize the color of their avatar name tag and to add a more accessible volume slider to the UI sidebar. Voting ends March 16 and 17.
- Convex Finance is voting on Curve and Frax gauge weight allocations for the week of March 12, directing vlCVX voting power across hundreds of liquidity pools. It’s also voting on FXN gauge weight allocations for the same period. Voting ends March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO is voting to finalize its 2026–2027 multisig signers election, preserving the 5-of-9 threshold and setting quarterly signer compensation. Voting ends March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO is running Ballot 3 to elect seven of the remaining 10 nominees as multi-sig signers, completing the nine-signer roster for the DAO Foundation wallet. Voting ends March 17.
- Aura Finance is voting on Balancer gauge weight allocations for the week of March 12, directing vlAURA voting power across Balancer pools on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Gnosis, Base and Avalanche. Voting ends March 17.
- ShapeShift DAO is voting on establishing and funding a new International UX workstream for six months to maintain professional multilingual translations of the ShapeShift app and website. Voting ends March 17.
- WalletConnect Network is voting on allocating 50 million WCT tokens as a dedicated rewards budget for WalletConnect Pay in 2026. Voting ends March 18.
- ENS is voting on a one-time transfer of 900,000 USDC from the ENS Endowment to wallet.ensdao.eth to cover a shortfall in stream payments owed to ENS Labs. Voting ends March 18.
- Cratos DAO is voting on extending the current mobile app reward standard deadline by one month to April 30, 2026. Voting ends March 19.
- Lightchain AI DAO is voting on a temporary 90-day team authority proposal, which grants the core team temporary operational authority for 90 days to make day-to-day and strategic decisions. Voting ends March 22.
Unlocks
- March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.78% of its circulating supply worth $9.65 million.
- March 20: LayerZero (ZRO) to unlock 5.64% of its circulating supply worth $52.45 million.
Token Launches
- March 16: HTX DAO (HTX) staking public beta begins.
- March 18: Katana (KAT) to be listed on Binance
- March 21: PENGU$0.007908 Soulbound Token airdrop date with Jupiter Mobile.

Conferences

March 17: CBC Summit (London)
March 17–18: DC Blockchain Summit 2026 (Washington, D.C.)
March 17-19: Merge São Paulo (Brazil)

week ahead

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