Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $76,500 on Wednesday as renewed U.S. strikes on Iran drove oil sharply higher and pushed Fed rate hike odds to 68%.
Key Points:
- Bitcoin traded near $76,500 after Brent crude jumped past $93 a barrel on renewed U.S. strikes against Iranian targets.
- U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $236.46 million on Sept. 1, the heaviest single-day withdrawal since Jul. 31.
- Traders now price a 68% chance of a Federal Reserve rate increase on Sept. 16, though several economists say an oil-driven inflation spike is the wrong trigger.
Bitcoin Price Breaks $77,000 Support
Bitcoin traded around $76,500 during European hours, down more than 1% since midnight UTC and roughly 3% across a week that opened with the token holding above $78,500. Brent crude jumped past $93 a barrel as Washington escalated its air campaign against Iranian targets.
West Texas Intermediate approached $90 in the same session, while the 10-year Treasury yield climbed toward 4.8% on the inflation implications of costlier energy running through transport and production costs.
U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds also shed $236.46 million on Sept. 1, their heaviest single-day withdrawal since Jul. 31 and a reversal of the prior session's inflow. BlackRock's IBIT supplied $201.18 million of that, while Fidelity's FBTC lost another $43.67 million.
Also Read: Bitcoin ETFs Absorb $216.7M, Undoing A Single Session Of Outflows
Fed Rate Hike Odds Split Analysts
Interest rate futures now assign a 68% chance to a quarter-point increase at the Federal Reserve's Sept. 16 meeting, a sharp turn from the hold-forever consensus that governed markets in early August. Several strategists think that repricing misreads the problem.
James E. Thorne, chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus, called the oil move "a growth shock dressed up as inflation," and argued that tightening into it would only compound the damage. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, has made a similar case. Positioning data leans bearish without much conviction behind it, as short trades took 51.5% of 24-hour taker volume while futures open interest held flat near 700,000 Bitcoin for a second straight day.
That total sits well below this year's peak of 801,000 coins.
Bitcoin Support Levels After August Rally
Analysts place the first meaningful floor between $76,500 and $77,000, a narrow band that doubles as a cluster of leveraged liquidations and has already absorbed repeated tests since late August.
A sustained break there would open the $75,700 to $76,000 area, then a deeper pocket around $72,500 to $73,200, with the 200-day simple moving average sitting much further down near $69,504.
Context matters here, because the slide follows Bitcoin's strongest month since November 2024 rather than any breakdown in the wider uptrend that carried the market through the second half of the summer. August was also the best stretch for the spot funds all year.
Prices ran from the mid-$63,000s into the low $81,000s over the month, a gain of roughly 25% that drew $3.52 billion into the ETFs, though every push above $80,000 kept failing to hold.
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