News · Oct 16, 2026 · 4 min read
Bitcoin today: producer prices jump 1.3%, longs lose $167 million, difficulty up 6%
US producer prices rose 1.3% in September, the biggest monthly jump since March 2022. Bitcoin read $81,567 on 15 October and longs paid for it. Difficulty adjusts up about 6% later today, which trims what every machine earns.
Producer prices rose 1.3% in a month, the most since March 2022
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday 15 October that its Producer Price Index for final demand rose 1.3% in September and 6.3% over the 12 months. It wrote that the September increase "is the largest advance since rising 1.7 percent in March 2022."
Goods prices rose 2.6% and service prices 0.8%. Energy did the damage: the release says half of the rise in goods traces to gasoline, which jumped 20.3%. Excluding foods, energy and trade services, prices still rose 0.5% in the month and 5.0% over the year.
Bitcoin read $81,567 and longs lost $167 million
On our daily series bitcoin read $83,094 on 14 October and $81,567 on 15 October, a fall of 1.8%. Futures traders who had bet on a rise took the loss: our liquidations chart shows $167 million of bitcoin longs force-closed on 15 October against $45 million of shorts.
The Fear & Greed Index read 53 on 15 October, down from 62 the day before, and was back at 63 this morning. The funds moved the other way on 14 October: the US spot ETFs lost $261 million that day, after taking in $176 million on 13 October, according to our flows series. They hold 1,289,053 bitcoin.
Mastercard and BVNK launch a platform that holds dollars and stablecoins together
Mastercard and BVNK launched the Global Money Platform on 15 October, Bitcoin.com reported. It lets banks, fintechs and businesses offer accounts that hold both fiat currencies and stablecoins, with cards and international payouts through one API. Card issuing is available in more than 130 countries, and balances can be spent at hundreds of millions of merchant locations.
Mastercard bought BVNK in August in a deal worth up to $1.8 billion. This is dollar-linked money moving on existing payment rails, not bitcoin, so it does not change what a miner earns. It is the next step in the stablecoin payments story, and the first launch from the two companies together.
Difficulty rises about 6% later today
The next difficulty adjustment is at block 971,712, and mempool.space showed 27 blocks to go this morning, about four hours, with an estimated rise of 6.0%. Network hashrate has run around 1,000 EH/s, and blocks arriving faster than every ten minutes are what push the target up.
The last adjustment, on 3 October, moved it by 0.03%, as we covered in the retarget that barely moved. For how a retarget changes what a machine earns, see what mining difficulty is.
A 6% rise in difficulty means about 5.7% fewer coins for every machine.
What it means for miners
A petahash earned 0.000477 bitcoin a day on 15 October on our hashprice chart, about $38.89 at that day's price. A rise of 6.0% in difficulty takes about 5.7% off the coins, all else equal, from the moment it lands.
That is when efficiency pays. The most efficient machine we stock, the Antminer S23 XP Hyd at 8.9 J/TH, makes a bitcoin for about $17,900 of electricity at Nigeria's 3.9¢, against a market price of about $82,100. That is electricity only, at today's hashprice, before the retarget, and output is not guaranteed.
The next test for price is the Federal Reserve's meeting on 27 and 28 October. The next test for output is the retarget this afternoon.
A lower coin count per machine is the cost of a network that keeps growing.
Sources and further reading
- Producer Price Index – September 2026 — US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 15 Oct 2026
- Mastercard Brings Stablecoins to Millions of Retail Checkouts — Bitcoin.com News, 15 Oct 2026
- Difficulty adjustment — mempool.space, 16 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.