Crypto

Bitcoin's CPI Hour: $860 Lower Within 60 Minutes, Then a Slow Slide Toward $80,000

Bitcoin fell 1.79% on October 14 to $81,682 on Binance, with the sharpest drop in the hour of the US inflation report. Ether lost 3.06%, and early on Thursday bitcoin touched $80,226.

Oct 15, 2026

Bitcoin was trading quietly above $83,000 for most of Wednesday morning in Europe. Then the US inflation data arrived at 12:30 UTC. In the hour from 12:00 to 13:00 UTC, bitcoin fell from $83,466 to $82,606 on Binance, a drop of about $860, on $180 million of volume — more than five times the volume of a typical hour that morning.

The selling did not stop there. Bitcoin kept drifting lower through the US session and closed the UTC day at $81,682, down 1.79%. Early on Thursday it dipped to $80,226 in the 02:00 UTC hour, and it was trading near $80,900 a few hours later.

Ether fell harder. It lost 3.06% on the day to $2,421.60, with most of the drop after the CPI release: it fell from about $2,505 before the data to $2,413.52 within two and a half hours. Among the larger tokens, Uniswap fell 4.61%, Aave 3.70% and Chainlink 3.48%. Tron was the only major coin to rise, by 1.56%.

The pattern is the same one seen in stocks. A higher chance of a Fed hike means higher yields on safe assets, which makes speculative assets with no income less attractive. Bitcoin moved roughly in line with the Nasdaq, which fell 1.88%; ether and most altcoins fell more, as they usually do on risk-off days.

Bitcoin has now given back all of Tuesday's 1.63% rebound. The next test comes at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, with the producer price and retail sales reports.