Crypto Week Ahead: Coinbase, USDC, Fed Minutes and Oil in Focus

Week Ahead: Aug. 17-23

Markets will be watching the Federal Reserve’s efforts to achieve a soft landing, bringing inflation down without triggering a recession or a significant increase in unemployment. Wednesday’s FOMC minutes from the July meeting could provide clues about whether policymakers are considering another interest-rate increase.

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, estimates the probability of a September Fed hike at just 25%. He instead expects the first increase to come in December, while also predicting inflation could accelerate again in early 2027.

Geopolitical developments will remain another key source of uncertainty because they can have a major impact on market volatility and crude oil prices.

Higher interest rates generally reduce the appeal of riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies by increasing the relative attractiveness of traditional investments.

Within the crypto sector, European operators face a Sunday deadline to halt transactions with 14 specified crypto platforms, making it the week’s most significant regulatory event.

What to Watch

All times ET

Crypto

• Aug. 18: Coinbase and Circle’s USDC partnership agreement enters its first three-year renewal period. The agreement determines how the two companies share revenue from USDC.
• Aug. 23: The EU’s restriction on transactions involving 14 designated crypto-asset service providers takes effect.

Macro

• Aug. 17, 8:30 a.m.: Canada July CPI year over year; forecast 2.6%, compared with 2.8% previously.
• Aug. 18, 9:15 a.m.: U.S. July industrial production month over month; forecast 0.3%, versus 0.1% previously.
• Aug. 19, 2 a.m.: U.K. July headline CPI year over year; forecast 3.0%, up from 2.6%. Core CPI was previously 2.6%.
• Aug. 19, 5 a.m.: Euro area July final headline inflation; forecast 2.9%, versus 2.8% previously. Core inflation is expected at 2.5%, compared with 2.4%.
• Aug. 19, 2 p.m.: U.S. Federal Reserve minutes from the July 28-29 meeting.
• Aug. 20, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending Aug. 15; forecast 201,000, compared with 209,000 previously.
• Aug. 20, 7:30 p.m.: Japan July headline CPI; previous reading 1.7%. Core CPI is expected at 1.8%, up from 1.6%.
• Aug. 21, 2 a.m.: U.K. July retail sales month over month; previous reading 1.0%.
• Aug. 21, 4 a.m.: Euro area August S&P Global Composite PMI preliminary reading; forecast 51.6, versus 52.0 previously.
• Aug. 21, 9:45 a.m.: U.S. August S&P Global Composite PMI preliminary reading; forecast 53.2, compared with 54.5 previously.

Earnings

• Aug. 17: BitFuFu (FUFU), premarket; expected EPS of $0.01.
• Aug. 18: Canaan (CAN), premarket; expected EPS of -$0.14.
• Aug. 18: BTCS Inc. (BTCS), after the market close.

Token Governance Votes

• Compound: Proposals 595 and 596 seek to reduce rates on deprecated markets to zero and introduce security upgrades for layer-2 networks. Voting ends Aug. 16.
• Frax Finance: FIP-450 and FIP-451 propose adding Gearbox and Royco yield strategies to sfrxUSD. Voting runs through Aug. 17.
• ShapeShift DAO: A proposal would move the rFOX staking program from Arbitrum to Ethereum mainnet on Oct. 1 and temporarily increase revenue-sharing rewards to 50% for three months to encourage migration. Voting ends Aug. 18.
• Rocket Pool: Members are considering replacing Snapshot with RocketDash as the official offchain signaling platform to reduce expenses. Voting ends Aug. 19.
• GnosisDAO: A proposal seeks to transform Gnosis Chain from an independent layer-1 blockchain into an Ethereum-settled rollup with synchronous composability with Ethereum mainnet. Voting closes Aug. 19.
• Decentraland DAO: Members are considering a formal governance framework and appeals process for platform-wide bans. Voting ends Aug. 19.
• THORSwap: TIP-19 proposes migrating THOR tokens to METRO on Ethereum mainnet at a 1:1 ratio. Voting ends Aug. 22.

Token Unlocks

• Aug. 17: Aster (ASTER) will unlock 1.8% of its circulating supply, worth about $28.3 million.
• Aug. 18: Official Trump (TRUMP) will release 4.1% of its circulating supply, valued at roughly $40 million.
• Aug. 20: LayerZero (ZRO) will unlock 4.5% of its circulating supply, worth about $24.8 million.
• Aug. 20: Kaito (KAITO) will unlock 6.2%, valued at approximately $11.7 million.
• Aug. 21: Avalanche (AVAX) will unlock 0.7% of its circulating supply, worth around $23.1 million.
• Aug. 21: Morpho (MORPHO) will release 3.9%, worth about $22.7 million.
• Aug. 21: Akedo Games (AKE) will unlock 4.9% of its circulating supply, valued at roughly $14.1 million.

Token Launches

• No major high-profile token launches have been confirmed for the week.

Conferences

• Aug. 17-20: Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2026 — Wyoming.
• Aug. 20-21: Coinfest Asia 2026 — Bali.

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