Live updates: Bitcoin closing out best quarter since 2024, ether its best since 2021

“As strong as fiscal 2026 was, we expect fiscal 2027 to be even better,” said Micron (MU) CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. “Industry demand has strengthened since our last earnings call, and we expect memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than they were in 2026.”

Micron reported fiscal fourth quarter adjusted EPS of $33.42 versus forecasts for $33.61. Revenue of $54.23 billion topped estimates of $51.1 billion.

First quarter 2027 revenue is seen at $61.5 billion versus forecasts of $57 billion. EPS is seen at $38.15 versus estimates of $35.40.

Shares are up 1.1% in after-hours trading.

“Those betting against ‘the house’ keep winning,” wrote Jeff Gundlach.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.30% on Wednesday, its highest level since 2002.

The 30-year yield rose to 5.65%, also a 24-year high.

Both yields were lower earlier after pleasing U.S. August inflation data, but the respite didn’t last long before bond sellers again took control.

Up more than 1% earlier, the Nasdaq was higher by just 0.25% at the close, with the S&P 500 and DJIA moving into the red.

Also up sharply following the inflation data, bitcoin has sold off since, now sitting at $83,500, down 0.4% over the past 24 hours.

Assuming a close today somewhere around $84,000, bitcoin BTC$84,257.25 will end the third quarter with about a 44% gain, its best quarterly result since the first three months of 2024 when it rose 68.7%, according to Coinglass.

This quarter’s advance, of course, comes after three consecutive down quarters.

Also following three straight down quarters, ether ETH$2,716.20 has shot higher by 70.9% over the past three months. That’s its finest quarter since the first three months of 2021 when it rose 160.7%.

Coming up is the fourth quarter, and since 2013, it’s been bitcoin’s strongest quarter with an average gain of 77% and a median gain of 47.7%.

The data center stocks are mostly lower today, but leading the way is Hut 8 HUT$86.11·Market Closed after a filing suggested the sale of 1.5 million shares by Michael Ho, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer and a board member.

“Mike did not sell 1.5 million shares in the open market,” said CEO Asher Genoot on X this afternoon. “Mike has not sold any shares since we started the company.”

Genoot went on to explain that Ho borrowed against some of his holdings, and the 1.5 million shares in the filing reflect the collateral against that borrowing, rather than a sale.

“Ultimately, the structure gave Mike the liquidity he needed without selling shares in the open market, while allowing him to retain substantial exposure to the upside in Hut 8,” Genoot concluded.

HUT shares are lower by 4.8% in afternoon trading.

“At no point during our evaluation did we find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred,” according to the report of the Federal Reserve’s Office of Inspector General.

“Further, while our report outlines deficiencies in the management of the renovation project, resulting in our recommended corrective actions in accordance with the Inspector General Act, we did not identify administrative misconduct during our evaluation.”

At issue was the Fed’s roughly $1.3 billion renovation of its Eccles Building headquarters, which had nearly doubled in cost, and whether then-Chairman Jerome Powell or others could be held criminally liable.

Now cleared of at least criminal responsibility, this could possibly set the stage for Powell to leave the central bank after he took the unusual step of remaining as a Fed governor after his term as chairman ended.

The Bank of Korea (South Korea’s central bank) will soon buy about one ton of domestically produced gold, its first purchase of the yellow metal in 13 years, reported Seoul Economic Daily.

That’s according to Rep. Chung Tae-ho of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee.

The BOK stopped gold buys in 2013 as prices declined and criticism from politicians ramped up, the story continued.

Chung said the decision to resume buying was a necessary first step in diversifying Korea’s reserves.

As of the end of August, the BOK’s gold holdings stood at 104.4 tons and accounted for just 3.4% of assets at market prices.

The battered bond market and flatlining bitcoin market both received a boost from softer-than-forecast inflation data earlier this morning.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is now 1.6 basis points higher on the day, at 5.276%, after falling as low as 5.20%.

The 30-year yield is up 3.6 basis points to 5.63% after its decline to 5.54%.

The PCE price index numbers that caused the sugar-high rally are 1) old (August data), 2) still showing inflation running well above the Fed’s 2% target, and 3) were the first released under new benchmarking by the BLS that might have artificially caused the beat.

Oil prices — which have been behind so much of the inflationary pressure — are also on the rise again today, with WTI crude up more than 2%. The refined products — gasoline and diesel (heating oil) — are higher by 4%.

Long-term holders now account for 80% of bitcoin’s supply, an all-time high according to Glassnode’s HODL Waves data. This cohort covers bitcoin that has not moved for at least 155 days. Each colored band represents the share of the supply that was last moved within a particular period, with all bands adding up to 100%.

The percentage share has risen from 65% to 80% over the past year, suggesting investors have accumulated and held bitcoin through the past year’s bear market, during which bitcoin fell from $126,000 to $60,000.

The 155-day threshold currently falls around late April, meaning coins last moved before then now qualify as long-term holdings.

Bitcoin could have more room to run if softer U.S. inflation keeps pressure on Treasury yields and the dollar.

The latest PCE report has traders dialing back expectations for further Fed rate hikes. Joel Kruger, global markets strategist at LMAX Group, said that shift is pulling yields lower and cutting into the dollar’s rate advantage.

That could give crypto markets some breathing room. Bitcoin has held up despite a period of strong demand for the dollar, which tends to make risk assets less attractive.

“If that headwind now eases alongside lower US yields, it could provide an additional tailwind for bitcoin and ETH by improving global financial conditions and reducing the relative appeal of holding cash in dollars,” Kruger said.

There are still risks, according to Fitch Ratings’ Olu Sonola, who said inflation remains around 3% or higher, while Truflation’s Oliver Rust sees energy prices and tariffs as key sources of price pressure.

That leaves bitcoin sensitive to the next inflation readings, oil prices and the Fed’s rate path.

A sharp rise in bitcoin following better-than-forecast August U.S. inflation data has been about fully reversed less than two hours later.

Bitcoin jumped more than 2% to above $85,500 in the minutes following the government’s PCE prices report, which came in slower than expected.

With leveraged shorts now fully squeezed out of their positions, the price has returned to its pre-inflation position of $84,000.

U.S. stocks, meanwhile, are showing no such reversal, with the Nasdaq up more than 1% to a session high. Government bond yields are modestly lower.

In what could be a preview of the national ISM figures due to be released tomorrow, the Chicago PMI jumped to 58.8 in September from 47.1 previously.

Economist forecasts had been for a tamer rise to just 51.2.

Markets are giving back some of their knee-jerk gains that followed PCE inflation data released about 90 minutes ago.

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield is now lower by just 1.2 basis points to 5.248%., and bitcoin is about $1,000 off of its highs at $84,550.

Traders were already trimming bets on a Fed rate hike in October following yesterday’s dovish speech by John Williams, president of the New York Fed.

They’re cutting those bets even more after softer-than-forecast U.S. inflation data released minutes ago.

According to CME FedWatch, which compiles data from trader positioning in short-term interest rate futures, the odds of a rate hike at the Fed’s Oct. 28 meeting have now fallen to 47.1%. They were 70% about 48 hours ago.

As many are noting, the Bureau of Labor Statistics — which compiles the PCE price data released this morning — changed the methodology for how it measures certain components of that gauge. This could have been behind the inflation beat.

Bitcoin BTC$84,257.25 has jumped about 1% to $84,750 following August PCE inflation data that came in softer than economist forecasts.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is lower by 4.2 basis points to 5.218%, and the 2-year yield is down 2.1 basis points to 4.868%.

U.S. stock index futures are higher by about 0.4% across the board.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index rose 0.3% in August, according to a just-released government report. That’s up from 0.1% in July, but shy of forecasts for 0.4%.

On a year-over-year basis, PCE prices rose 3.4%, flat from July, but well below estimates for 3.7%.

Core PCE prices rose 0.2% in August, up from 0.1% in July, but beating forecasts for 0.3%.

Year-over-year core PCE prices were higher by 3%, flat from July, but less than estimates for 3.3%.

The U.S. private sector added 90,000 jobs in September, according to the ADP Employment report.

That’s up from 36,000 in August and ahead of economist forecasts for 70,000.

Still to come in a few minutes is PCE price data for August.

Markets also await Friday’s main event, when the government reports its jobs data for September.

Real, or inflation-adjusted, yields on U.S. Treasury notes are a main headwind for bitcoin, according to analysts at Bitfinex.

The 10-year inflation-adjusted yield climbed to 2.83% from 2.68% in the week to Sept. 25.

A Treasury note offering nearly 3% inflation-adjusted returns raises the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold.

Multicoin Capital, a thesis-driven firm focused on cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies, is investing in Grass, the read layer for machine intelligence, through its hedge fund and venture fund.

Grass has demonstrated commercial viability by generating significant revenue and achieving profitability, following its early success in supplying pretraining data for frontier AI labs through millions of residential connections, the announcement said.

The firm believes that Grassis positioned to become essential infrastructure for autonomous AI agents by launching specialized search and contents APIs to tap into the massive, recurring inference-time live context retrieval market.

Only 25% of S&P 500 stocks are now trading above their 50-day moving average, the lowest level since April 2, according to The Kobeissi Letter

This marks a sharp deterioration in market breadth from 70% in mid-August.

The crypto market is still in relatively good shape.

The main U.S. macro event for Wednesday is the release of PCE inflation data, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy prices, is expected to rise 0.3% month over month and 3.3% year over year. GDP growth is expected to come in at 1.5% quarter over quarter.

Bitcoin and gold are slightly higher on the day, trading at $83,700 and just below $4,200 an ounce, respectively.

Markets currently price a 57% probability that the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged at its Oct. 28 meeting.

Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Ethena's ENA token with a price target of $2 by the end of 2028. That amounts to an increase of nearly 670% from the token’s going market price of 26 cents.

The bank said that Ethena benefits from the growing demand for yield-bearing stablecoins and the expansion of tokenized assets in both decentralized and traditional finance, while noting the rapid growth in its USDe stablecoin, which reached a market cap of $10 billion in its first nine months.

The bank also noted Ethena's buyback-and-burn program and said the USDe supply could grow to $40 billion by 2028, while mentioning slower adoption and weaker growth in real-world assets as potential risks.

Gold is back near $4,200 an ounce. Simon-Peter Massabni, head of business development at XS.com, said in a note shared with CoinDesk that the level is where buyers betting on the broader uptrend meet sellers expecting a deeper pullback.

He wants a daily or four-hour close above $4,200 before calling a new leg higher.

In the short term, the Federal Reserve matters most. Gold pays no interest, so when markets expect rates to stay high, holding it gets more expensive compared with bonds and cash. That makes Wednesday's PCE inflation data the next test. A higher-than-expected reading "could trigger another wave of short-term selling pressure," Massabni said.

After PCE, attention turns to the monthly U.S. jobs report. A weaker-than-expected jobs number would ease bets on further rate hikes.

Bitcoin slipped 0.3% to about $83,700 early Wednesday, U.S. time. Traders are waiting on the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Federal Reserve's favored inflation gauge, which is expected to show inflation quickened in August.

A higher-than-expected inflation reading would add to the bets on rate hikes that drove a bruising bond selloff this month. Brent crude rose above $103 a barrel and is up about 14% in September, even though Middle East crude flows are returning to pre-war levels. Treasuries steadied a day after 30-year yields hit their highest since 2002, and the dollar held near its highest since July.

Ether fell 0.7% to about $2,690. HYPE dropped nearly 2%, the worst among the majors, while XRP and TRX each added under 1%, according to CoinDesk data.

Onchain analysis firm CryptoQuant estimates that bitcoin's spot demand has shrunk by about 170,000 BTC over the past 30 days. Growth in futures demand has dropped 90% since Sept. 14.

Micron Technology reports after the U.S. close. Its results are a test for the AI-linked stocks that kept the S&P 500's losses in check through the bond selloff.

Source: CoinDesk