From Decrypt · By Jose Antonio Lanz
In brief
U.S. consumer prices rose 3.7% year over year in September, above the 3.6% forecast, as gasoline jumped 9.1% in a single month.
Odds of an October Fed rate hike roughly doubled from 22% after the report, and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to about 5.3%.
Bitcoin fell 1.5% to $82,142 and is holding the $81,847 to $82,305 Fibonacci golden zone, with $81,603 as the next support.
Bitcoin fell 1.5% to $82,142 on Wednesday after U.S. inflation came in hotter than expected, dragging most of the crypto market down with it. Ethereum dropped 2.8% to $2,440, Solana lost 1.9% and XRP slid 1.3%, while total crypto market cap shed 0.7% to $2.8 trillion.
The Consumer Price Index rose 0.6% in September and 3.7% over the past year, up from 3.4% in August, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists expected 3.6%. Gasoline prices jumped 9.1% in a single month and accounted for more than half of the increase.
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Core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 2.6% annually against a 2.5% forecast. That is the reading the Federal Reserve watches most closely, since it shows whether price pressure is spreading into rent, airfares, and services.
Expensive gasoline starts with expensive oil, which has traded above $90 a barrel for most of the past two months amid the war between the U.S. and Iran. Pricier fuel raises the cost of shipping and producing almost everything.
When inflation runs hot, the Fed raises interest rates to cool spending. It already hiked in September to a 3.75%-4.00% range, and traders now see roughly 44% to 49% odds of another hike at its October 27-28 meeting, up from 22% before the report, according to CME FedWatch.
The 2-year Treasury yield, which closely tracks Fed rate expectations, jumped about 10 basis points to roughly 4.9%, while the 10-year climbed to about 5.3%, near 24-year highs.
Higher yields hit crypto directly. A government bond paying 5.3% with almost no risk competes with Bitcoin, which pays nothing. Rising rates also make borrowing more expensive and tend to strengthen the dollar, draining the cheap money speculative assets feed on, which is why the S&P 500 fell 0.6% and the Nasdaq 0.8% on the same news.
Crypto also swings harder than stocks because many traders borrow to bet on rising prices, and when the price drops past a set level, exchanges automatically close those positions, a process called liquidation, and that forced selling can push prices lower and trigger more liquidations in a chain.
BitcoinBTC · USD$81,968−1.78%Oct 7Oct 9Oct 11Oct 12Oct 14$84.2k$83.1k$81.9k$80.7k24h HighHigh$84,02524h LowLow$82,294VolVol$1.3BMarket projectionsOdds by MyriadToday$80,000 to $82,000$80k–$82k57% chanceThis weekAbove $82,000Above $82k50% chance→Buy Bitcoin with USDTPowered by JupiterPrice data by CoinGeckoCoinGeckoMore Bitcoin news and projections →At the moment, more than $281 million in crypto derivatives positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, with most of it coming in just the last four hours—and the majority of that coming from Bitcoin long positions (the bulls betting the price would go up, and now paying the price when it dropped).