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Bitcoin traded at $81,002 on Thursday, down 2.7% over 24 hours and 2.5% over the week, after slipping to an intraday low of $80,444, according to Decrypt. The drop followed hotter-than-expected U.S. consumer price data that revived expectations the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates again at its October 28 meeting.
U.S. consumer prices rose 3.7% in the year to September and 0.6% over the month, the largest monthly gain in five months, driven mainly by energy costs tied to the war with Iran, Decrypt reported, citing The New York Times. Bitcoin has now been pressured by inflation running above the Fed’s 2% target for 66 straight monthly readings, a century-long streak, according to a CNBC analysis cited by Decrypt.
Also readFed Rate Hike Odds Jump to 66% After Warsh's Jackson Hole Signal — Jobs Report Looms
Key facts
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour high was $83,791 and its low $80,444, with 24-hour volume of $1.9 billion, per CoinGecko data cited by Decrypt.
- The Fed raised rates to a range of 3.75% to 4% in September and will announce its next decision on October 28.
- CME FedWatch put October hike odds at 29.3% Thursday, up from 17.7% a week earlier, while traders on Myriad and Polymarket priced it at 28%; Polymarket put the chance of a December hike at 79%.
- Coincentral reported a different read on the same gauge: its recap of Wednesday’s session said traders saw a 37% chance of a Fed hike this month, using CME’s FedWatch tool, up from 22% a day earlier.
- Apple closed above a $5 trillion market value for the first time, while the Nasdaq fell 1.88% to 26,692.87 and the S&P 500 lost 1.11% to 7,718.94, per Coincentral.
Inflation, jobs and the rate calculus
HashKey Group’s Tim Sun told Decrypt the macro backdrop is only part of the story. Rising rate hike expectations, a stronger dollar and a pullback in AI tech stocks have all weighed on Bitcoin on the surface, he said, but the deeper issue is the changing structure of incremental capital. Over the past two years, Sun said, spot ETFs and corporate Bitcoin treasuries were the main marginal buyers. With borrowing costs higher, narrower valuation premiums at some corporate treasuries have made raising money to keep buying Bitcoin less attractive.
Sun added that Bitcoin has avoided a sustained deep sell-off, pointing to growing involvement from major traditional banks that has brought long-term capital into the market.
Also readUS September CPI Hits 3.7% as Core Inflation Tops Forecasts
The equity sell-off behind those pressures was sharp. Coincentral reported that AI-linked names led Wednesday’s declines: Oracle fell 8.8%, CoreWeave dropped 15%, Nebius lost 10%, Dell sank 11.4% and Hewlett Packard Enterprise fell 8.2% after Barclays cut both hardware names to equal-weight from overweight. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 4.3%, its sixth straight daily decline. Bank of America fell 4.8% after its third-quarter profit dropped and it set aside $1.2 billion for regulatory fines tied to failures to detect possible money laundering, while Morgan Stanley slipped almost 3% despite higher quarterly profit. In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi dropped more than 7% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4.4%.
Why it matters
Bitcoin is trading as a liquidity asset in the short term, according to Abdul Rafay Gadit of ZIG Finance, who told Decrypt that higher-for-longer rates mean tighter liquidity and that the drop reflects the market repricing rates rather than a change in Bitcoin’s own story. That framing matters for holders because it ties near-term price direction to Fed signaling rather than to crypto-specific developments.
It also marks a shift from the ETF- and treasury-driven demand that powered the last two years of buying. If those channel inflows slow as borrowing costs rise, the marginal buyer becomes harder to replace, which is why both Sun and Algoz’s Stephen Wundke describe the market as range-bound until a fresh catalyst appears. The gap between the two outlets’ rate-hike odds — 29.3% from CME FedWatch in Decrypt’s Thursday read and 37% in Coincentral’s Wednesday recap — reflects both different timestamps and different tracks of the same tool.
What to watch
The Fed’s next rate decision on October 28 is the main scheduled event, and Gadit told Decrypt that if the central bank signals it can look through sticky inflation, risk appetite could return quickly, while the opposite points to choppy trading.
Wundke said a Bitcoin range of $76,000 to $83,000 should hold for the rest of October without a clear catalyst, adding that peace with Iran would change that dynamic instantly.
This article is not financial advice, and cryptocurrency markets are volatile and uncertain.
Sources: Decrypt, Coincentral
