News · Oct 15, 2026 · 3 min read
Bitcoin today: under $81,000 as hot inflation revives Fed hike bets and the Kospi falls 8%
Consumer prices rose 3.7% in September, above forecasts, and bitcoin fell under $81,000 on our daily series, the lowest since 18 September, as Asian stocks fell hard. Longs paid for it. What it means for anyone running machines, and why the coins a petahash earns did not move.
Inflation rose to 3.7%, and Fed hike odds more than doubled
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday 14 October that consumer prices rose 0.6% in September and 3.7% over the year, up from 3.4% in August, in its CPI release. Prices excluding food and energy rose 0.3% in the month and 2.6% over the year. Forecasts had been around 3.6%.
The CME FedWatch tool put the chance of a quarter-point rate rise at the 27 to 28 October meeting at roughly 47% to 50%, up from about 22% a day earlier, The Crypto Times reported. The same article says gasoline rose 9.1% in September.
Bitcoin fell under $81,000, and longs took the loss
Bitcoin traded at $80,764 late on Wednesday New York time, down 3.6% in 24 hours, while ether fell 6.5% to $2,353, according to The Block. On our own daily series bitcoin read $83,094 on 14 October and $80,832 on 15 October, as we write.
CoinGlass counted $951.4 million of crypto positions force-closed in 24 hours, $876.3 million of them longs, The Block reported. Rick Maeda of Laevitas told it the scale of long liquidations "suggests significant leverage has already been flushed out." On our liquidations chart, bitcoin futures had $122 million of longs and $9 million of shorts closed by this morning, a day that is still filling in.
The Fear & Greed Index read 53 on 15 October, down from 62 the day before, and still in neutral territory.
Asia sold first: the Kospi fell 8% and the Nikkei 5.2%
South Korea's Kospi slid 8% in the morning session, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both down more than 9%, and Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 5.2%, The Block reported. It described the move as following overnight losses on Wall Street after the US inflation data.
Bitcoin is trading with stocks on this one. Nothing on the bitcoin network changed today; the move came from outside it.
The price moved on inflation. The network did not notice.
Difficulty is about a day from a rise of roughly 6%
The next difficulty adjustment is 176 blocks away, due on 16 October, and mempool.space estimates a rise of 6.2%. Our own estimate, a little earlier in the count, is 5.9%. Blocks have been arriving faster than every ten minutes, which is what more hashrate looks like.
The last adjustment, on 3 October, moved difficulty by 0.03%, the smallest since 2020, as we covered in the retarget that barely moved. A rise of this size means each machine earns about 6% fewer coins from the 16th, whatever the price does.
What it means for miners
A petahash earned 0.000476 bitcoin a day on both 14 and 15 October on our hashprice chart. In dollars that is $39.56 on the 14th and $38.48 on the 15th, an estimate: the dollar figure followed the price down, the coins did not move.
A lower price is when efficient machines on cheap power stack the most coins for each dollar of electricity. The most efficient machine we stock, the Antminer S23 XP Hyd at 8.9 J/TH, makes a bitcoin for about $18,000 of electricity at Nigeria's 3.9¢, against a market price of about $81,000. That is electricity only, at today's hashprice, and output is not guaranteed.
The pool market is shifting at the same time: Binance closes its pool on 10 November, covered in our note on the closure. The next test for price is the Fed meeting on 27 and 28 October; the next test for output is tomorrow's retarget.
The coins a petahash earns held still while the dollar price fell 3%.
Sources and further reading
- Consumer Price Index – September 2026 — US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14 Oct 2026
- Bitcoin drops below $81,000 as risk-off sentiment weighs on Asian equities — The Block, 15 Oct 2026
- Bitcoin Price Today: BTC slides below $81,000 as hotter September CPI revives October Fed rate hike odds — The Crypto Times, 15 Oct 2026
- Difficulty adjustment — mempool.space, 15 Oct 2026
Disclosure
Firsthand Bitcoin sells and hosts mining hardware, including this machine. No manufacturer, distributor or affiliate programme paid for or reviewed this page and we take no commission on the links above. Historical figures are computed from daily bitcoin price and network hashprice, each day valued at its own prices. Nothing here is investment advice.