Gold, Silver and Bitcoin All Slide as Rate-Hike Bets Build Toward Fed's Sept. 16 Decision

Three Different Assets, One Fed Story

Since Kevin Warsh's debut speech as Fed chairman at Jackson Hole on Aug. 28, three unrelated markets have all been reacting to the same thing: rising odds that the Federal Reserve raises rates for the first time since 2023.

Gold and silver got hit first. Front-month gold futures dropped $159.90, or more than 3 percent, to $4,504.10 an ounce on Aug. 28, according to The Epoch Times. That capped a weekly loss of 3.4 percent and cut gold's year-to-date gain to below 4 percent, a sharp comedown after the metal touched a record $5,600 an ounce earlier this year and a three-month high of $4,696.18 just three days before Warsh spoke.

Silver fell in tandem, down $2.34, or 3.37 percent, to $67.09 an ounce, a weekly drop of nearly 3 percent that left it down 5.5 percent for the year. Silver had traded near $122 earlier in 2026.

What Warsh Actually Said

The selloff traces directly to Warsh's language, not vague market jitters. He told the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole symposium that underlying inflation "has not meaningfully improved" and that "we have work to do," according to Breitbart's transcript of the speech. Warsh pointed out that roughly half the items in the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures index, are still rising faster than 3 percent a year, down from pandemic-era highs but well above the roughly one-third rate that was normal before COVID.

Warsh also said he wants the Fed to pull back on forward guidance altogether, telling the audience he's "committed to a discipline, not to a decision." That line matters because it means Warsh isn't pre-committing to anything for September, but traders read his overall tone as hawkish enough to reprice hike odds higher anyway.

ING commodities strategist Ewa Manthey told The Epoch Times she sees a floor forming around $4,150 an ounce for gold, citing renewed ETF buying, a weaker dollar and fiscal concerns as "increasingly clear upside risks" to her outlook. Fifth Third Commercial Bank's chief U.S. economist Bill Adams wrote in a note that "the case for rate hikes looks set to become more compelling over the next six months," pointing to core inflation staying sticky outside of housing even if energy prices ease.

Then Bitcoin Joined the Selloff

Bitcoin had been rallying into late August, a run ProCap Financial chairman Anthony Pompliano broke down for Fox News on Aug. 25. That rally didn't survive the following week's data.

On Sept. 4, Bitcoin fell more than 2 percent to around $79,300, erasing a brief push above $81,000, according to BigGo Finance. The trigger was the August jobs report: 162,000 new positions, nearly triple the 56,000 economists expected, with unemployment holding at 4.1 percent and wages up 0.3 percent on the month. July payrolls were also revised up to a gain of 21,000 from a previously reported decline.

That data pushed the probability of a September rate hike to 58 percent from 49.4 percent within minutes, according to CME FedWatch data cited by BigGo Finance, with one other estimate putting the odds as high as 62 percent. Bitcoin settled near $79,623, down 1.87 percent over 24 hours on roughly $30.6 billion in volume, even as spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in a record $731 million in inflows on Sept. 3.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller has said he'd consider backing a hike if inflation runs hot, which puts real weight on the August CPI report due September 11, four days ahead of the FOMC's September 15-16 meeting.

The Case for Calm, and Why It's Not Settled

Bulls on both metals and crypto have a fair argument here. ING's Manthey frames gold's pullback as a correction that "appears to have found a floor," not a reversal, and continued ETF demand backs that up. On the crypto side, the same jobs report that spooked Bitcoin also confirmed a resilient labor market and full employment, conditions Warsh himself cited as evidence the economy isn't straining under current rates.

The counterargument, made in a KuCoin market analysis carried across trading platforms, is that a hold on September 16 would trigger real relief. Core CPI has cooled from roughly 4.76 percent to somewhere near 2.5 to 3 percent depending on the reading, and July's Fed vote was already split 9-3 in favor of holding steady. A committee that divided isn't a lock to tighten further just because one jobs report beat expectations.

The Fed's Sept. 16 statement lands at 2:00 p.m. ET alongside an updated Summary of Economic Projections. Whether the dot plot shows officials expecting one hike or several will move gold, silver and Bitcoin more than the headline rate decision itself.