Karla Barker 
Boston Fed President Susan Collins is making her stance clear: she wants the Federal Reserve to stop signaling that rate cuts are coming next.
Collins backed the latest decision to hold rates steady. But she also urged the Fed to change the language in its statement to remove any implicit bias toward cutting. Instead, she wants guidance that says the next move could go either way — a cut or a hike.
This is consistent with what she has been saying for months. In late February, Collins said it was “quite likely” rates would stay unchanged “for some time.” She argued that after cumulative easing, policy was already “mildly restrictive, perhaps quite close to neutral.” She called for a “patient and deliberate approach.” By March, she told another audience there was “no urgency” to change rates. She said she would need “clear evidence” that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2% before she would support cuts.
A hawkish track record
Collins has been part of the Fed’s higher-for-longer camp for a while now. In prior cycles, she repeatedly set a “high bar” for additional easing. She has said she would be “reluctant to support further interest rate cuts anytime soon with inflation still high.” She warned in the past that premature easing could “delay – or potentially halt – the return of inflation to the target level.”
Her latest push to strip out dovish language matters for markets. The crypto market has already seen how sensitive it is to Fed surprises. Earlier this year, the Fed delivered a widely expected 25 basis point cut. But Bitcoin and Ethereum failed to extend their pre-meeting rally because “the move was fully priced in.” Bitcoin stayed stuck around $92,000. Ethereum hovered near $3,400.
What this means for crypto
If Collins and other hawks succeed in shifting the statement to a more symmetric “either way” framing, it will likely reinforce the idea that policy can stay tight even as growth cools. That kind of backdrop tends to cap speculative excess in crypto.
A recent crypto.news analysis suggested how hints of more cuts from other Fed officials briefly lifted sentiment before fading as traders realized the timing was uncertain. Another report contrasted Bitcoin’s choppy reaction to the last Fed decision with gold’s cleaner safe-haven bid. A broader macro piece argued that as long as rate cuts remain a moving target, “macro chop” will continue to dominate price action across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins.
The message from Collins is clear: don’t expect any easy cuts any time soon. And if the Fed changes its guidance to reflect that, crypto traders might need to adjust their expectations again.