Can Bitcoin still hit $100,000 in 2026? Hot inflation says not so fast

Why Bitcoin lost $80,000 (and then bounced)

It started on Wednesday when September's consumer price index came in at 3.7% year on year, above the 3.6% economists expected and up from 3.4% in August.

Gasoline did most of the damage, jumping 9.1% in a month, while core inflation, which strips out food and energy, held at a calmer 2.6%. Bitcoin (BTC) slid toward $81,000 on the print.

Thursday's producer price index added on the woes; wholesale prices rose 6.3% from a year earlier against forecasts of 5.3%, the biggest monthly jump since March 2022, pushing BTC below $80,000 for the first time in weeks.

The US dollar index climbed to its highest level in 18 months and a global tech sell-off deepened as investors questioned how much debt AI companies are taking on to build data centers.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell another 3.8% on Friday, extending its losing streak to eight sessions and leaving it more than 20% below its June peak. AI cloud provider CoreWeave, whose debt has passed $50 billion, lost about a quarter of its value over the week.

So, why didn't BTC keep falling?

Mostly because the bond market stayed calm. Treasury yields rose only modestly after the reports; it may be that investors still believe the Fed has inflation in hand.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh also declined to signal another hike in remarks at the IMF on Friday and several Fed officials said they would rather wait than rush into another increase after September's move. BTC clawed its way back to around $82,000 by Friday, though it still logged a second straight weekly loss.

The bigger takeaway is that for a 'digital gold', BTC fell alongside chip stocks and rose with them, not with gold.

Who's still buying?

The buyers who powered September's rally have gone quiet.

1. ETF investors are pulling back

US spot BTC ETFs lost $681 million in the week to October 9 and roughly $157 million more this week, including $261 million on October 14, the day of the CPI report, according to SoSoValue. Spot Ether (ETH) funds shed about $250 million from Monday to Thursday.

2. Strategy barely bought and now faces an index problem

Michael Saylor's company added just 250 BTC for $21.5 million, lifting its holdings to 848,250 BTC. It spent roughly nine times as much buying back its own preferred shares, a sign that propping up its securities now competes with adding BTC.

Then on Thursday, MSCI adopted rules that make companies whose main business is holding investments ineligible for its global indexes. Strategy is among those previously flagged for removal. Index funds that track MSCI may have to sell the stock if it's cut. The final list is due November 11, with changes taking effect after November 30. Strategy shares fell 9.5% on Friday.

3. Bitmine is almost at the finish line

Tom Lee's Bitmine bought another 12,532 ETH, taking its stash to 6,028,946 ETH, about 4.9% of all ETH in circulation. Having set out to own 5%, the company now describes itself as "largely finished buying ETH." One of the steadiest sources of demand for ETH this year may be about to switch off.

Can Bitcoin still score $100,000 by end of 2026?

Standard Chartered thinks so. The bank reaffirmed its $100,000 year-end target as it opened up an avenue for the higher net worth United Arab Emirates (UAE) clients to trade BTC and ETH directly from their bank accounts. From around $82,000, that requires a gain of about 22% in roughly 11 weeks.

1. The Fed may not be done

Before the CPI report, markets saw a roughly one-in-five chance of a hike at the October 27 to 28 meeting. That jumped above 50% after the print, before falling to about 15% after Warsh spoke on Friday, according to CME FedWatch.

December is a different story, with markets still leaning toward another hike by year-end. Higher rates make cash and bonds more attractive next to assets that pay no yield and BTC has struggled every time hike talk has picked up this year.

2. Oil is compounding inflation

Brent crude settled at $109.86 a barrel on Friday, its highest close since May, after reported attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure and a Ukrainian strike on a Russian refinery. Gasoline already drove September's hot CPI print. Higher oil going into October may make it harder for inflation to cool in time for the Fed.

3. Other central banks are leaning the same way

The European Central Bank meets on October 29, the Bank of Japan on October 30 and the Bank of England (BoE) on November 5, with markets pricing an 81% chance the BoE raises rates. A broad turn toward tighter policy would keep the dollar strong and a strong dollar has rarely been good for BTC.

4. The ETF bid has to come back

September's rally was built on $2.65 billion of ETF inflows. October so far has gone the other way. Without that steady demand and with the big corporate buyers slowing down, it's hard to see where a 22% rally gets its power.

The $100,000 call may now depend more on inflation cooling quickly and the Fed signaling it's done, two things this week's reports pointed away from.

What to watch next

• $80,000 support: This is where the largest cluster of protective put options sits ahead of month-end expiry on the largest crypto options venue. It acted as a floor this week. A clean break below it may put that support to the test.
• The October 30 options expiry: Roughly $11.7 billion in BTC options settle on October 30, including about $4.5 billion in calls between $90,000 and $100,000. Those are positions on a rally that, from today's level, would need to arrive fast.
• The Fed on October 28: Any hint that December is a live hike would weigh on the $100,000 case. A signal of patience may help the case.

📊 Markets recap

Crypto

• BTC: $79,800 to $84,200, trading near $81,500 after a second straight weekly loss, down about 1.5%
• ETH: $2,350 to $2,550, back above $2,400 after briefly slipping below it, down about 3% on the week
• SOL: $101 to $113, trading near $104, down about 4% on the week ahead of the Alpenglow upgrade
• XRP: $1.30 to $1.40, trading near $1.31, down about 5% on the week and testing $1.30 support

Token anomaly: Celestia (TIA), a network that stores transaction data for other blockchains, rose about 45% on the week and reached its highest price of the year when most of the market fell.

Equities

• S&P 500: 7,659, down 1.1% on Friday as tech stocks led the sell-off
• Nasdaq Composite: 26,140, down 2.1% on Friday as the chip sell-off deepened
• Dow: 52,002, down 0.3% on Friday, cushioned by a 2.5% rally in energy stocks
• Semiconductors: The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.8% on Friday, with all 30 members lower. CoreWeave dropped nearly 12% on the day and about 25% on the week as its bonds traded at distressed levels

Anthropic: The Claude developer told investors its third-quarter revenue rose 45% to $16.8 billion and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis, according to reports. It's one of the clearest signs yet that AI spending is turning into sales. Its planned IPO may slip past the November midterms, though, and valuation talk has reportedly cooled from about $2 trillion to $1.5 trillion

Commodities

• Gold: Approximately $4,145 to $4,215/oz, holding near $4,200 as falling Treasury yields offset the hot PPI print
• Oil: Brent at approximately $105 to $110, WTI at $92 to $101, with Brent settling at $109.86 and WTI at $101.41 on Friday. WTI gained about 10% on the week.

Spot ETF flows

US spot BTC ETFs saw roughly $157 million in net outflows for the week ending October 16, their second straight week of withdrawals, per SoSoValue. Tuesday's $176 million inflow was the only meaningful bright spot, outweighed by Wednesday's $261 million exit on CPI day. Spot ETH ETFs lost about $250 million from Monday to Thursday, with outflows on three of four days.

🟣 Solana's Alpenglow upgrade arrives Wednesday

Solana's Alpenglow upgrade is set to activate on October 21 at around 15:00 UTC, after being pushed back from its original September 28 date. It replaces the system validators use to agree on the state of the network, the most significant change since Solana launched.

The headline number is speed. Finality, the point at which a transaction can't be reversed, drops from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds, around 85 times faster. That puts Solana closer to the response times of traditional payment networks: this is important for trading, payments and apps that need instant confirmation.

SOL heads into the upgrade near $104, down about 4% on the week, dragged lower by the same macro pressure hitting the rest of the market. US spot Solana ETFs have also seen nine straight days of outflows.

🗓️ What's ahead

• October 19: Bitmine's weekly ETH holdings update
• October 21: Solana's Alpenglow upgrade activates
• October 27 to 28: Fed policy meeting

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