The most intense week of central bank actions at the end of the year is just around the corner—can you smell the gunpowder in the air?

This time, a 25 basis point rate cut by the Fed is almost a foregone conclusion, with the probability surging to 88%. But what’s really making the market hold its breath are the rumors that the bond purchase program might be restarted. Former New York Fed expert Cabana has suggested: Powell might announce a $45 billion monthly bond purchase target in January—which would mean what? Quantitative tightening (QT) is coming to an end, and the balance sheet expansion mode is rebooting.

Liquidity is about to get a massive injection.

What’s even more unusual is that this doesn’t seem to be a solo show by the Fed. Bank of America and UBS have been echoing the same sentiment recently, and officials like Williams from the New York Fed have repeatedly warned about “tightening reserves.” Repo market rates are frequently hitting upper limits, and the warning lights for liquidity stress are already flashing.

At the same time, central banks in Australia, Canada, and Switzerland are also set for policy decisions, and things are even more explosive in Japan—the BoJ governor Ueda has recently taken a clearly hawkish stance, and rate hike expectations have soared to 90%, with Japanese government bond yields hitting a 17-year high. Keep in mind, once yen carry trades start unwinding, both US Treasuries and US stocks might get shaken up.

So here’s the question: is the Fed just going through the motions with a routine rate cut, or is it preparing to launch “QE 2.0”? If Japan really hikes rates, will it trigger a chain reaction in the global bond market? We’ll have the answer on Wednesday.

Where ETH, SOL, ZEC and other coins go next may all depend on how this wave of macro changes unfolds.