Leveraged longs took a second straight day of forced closures after September inflation data put a Federal Reserve rate hike back on the table.
Bitcoin slid toward $81,300 on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and the futures market paid for it. CoinGlass data showed more than $100 million in leveraged positions liquidated in the hour after the Consumer Price Index report, with 24-hour closures climbing past $281 million by early afternoon snapshots, most of them Bitcoin longs.
The damage was the day’s second wave. On Oct. 13, more than $800 million in positions were forcibly closed across the market. That is over $1 billion in two days, and it followed weeks in which traders had supposedly trimmed risk. The hot print proved the exposure was still there: Bitcoin traded around $81,500 to $82,000 through the session, down as much as 2.15%, while Ethereum dropped 2.8% to $2,440, Solana lost 1.9% and XRP slid 1.3%.
September CPI rose 3.7% year over year, above the 3.6% forecast and August’s 3.4%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its release. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, accelerated to 2.6% from 2.4%. The repricing that followed hit rate bets hardest: on Kalshi, the implied probability of a 25-basis-point hike at the Fed’s Oct. 27-28 meeting jumped to 55% from 21%, while CME FedWatch put it at 44% to 49%, up from 22%. The two venues price the same decision differently, and neither number is “the” odds.
The Fed had already raised rates 25 basis points in September, to a 3.75% to 4% range, its first increase in more than three years. A second consecutive hike was fading until this print landed.
“Core at 0.3%, above consensus, puts an October hike back in play after the market had faded it to one in five,” Can-Luca Köymen, investment strategist at Sygnum Bank, said in the wake of the report. His bank still expects policymakers to hold, despite the reopened possibility.
What decides whether a third wave comes is the level itself. Bitcoin is holding a support band around $81,300 to $81,600; a daily close below it opens a slide toward $80,365. The next macro test is Thursday’s Producer Price Index, and the Fed announces its decision Oct. 28.
