Bitcoin shrugged off the inflation scare almost as quickly as the print landed.
The largest cryptocurrency dropped to $79,879 in late U.S. hours Tuesday after the April Consumer Price Index came in at 3.8% year-over-year, hotter than economists had estimated, with gasoline prices doing most of the lift since the Iran war began. BTC recovered to $81,208 by Asian morning Wednesday, ending the session up 0.3% over 24 hours after trading a $1,400 range. The dip got bought aggressively.
Among the majors, BNB led with a 2.5% gain to $677, while dogecoin added 1.3% to $0.1114. Ether dropped 0.3% over 24 hours to $2,300 and is now down 3.2% on the seven-day, the laggard of the cohort. Solana slipped 0.6% to $95.52. XRP traded at $1.45, down 0.5% on the day.
The CPI print rattled traditional markets harder than crypto. The S&P 500 fell 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.9%, with semiconductor stocks taking the brunt of the selling after weeks of outsized gains.
The rate-sensitive two-year Treasury yield held just under 4%, while Japan’s 20-year bond yield breached its January peak to touch the highest level since 1997 as elevated energy prices add to inflation pressure globally.
Asian equities clawed back early losses after the White House confirmed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would join President Donald Trump’s trip to China, lifting chipmaker futures.
The flows underneath crypto are still positive. CoinShares reported global crypto fund inflows of $858 million last week, with bitcoin products absorbing $706 million, ether $77 million, solana $48 million, and XRP $40 million.
The largest data point was the $14 million in outflows from bitcoin short positions, the biggest weekly short unwind of 2026. Money is leaving bearish bets on bitcoin even as the macro tape turns choppier, which is the kind of positioning shift that typically precedes upward grinds rather than capitulations.
FxPro’s chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said the broader sentiment index has settled just below the midpoint of its range, recording readings of 47, 48 and 49 over the past three days, suggesting bears still have a slight upper hand.
Bitcoin “lost its upward momentum as it approached the 200-day moving average,” he said in a note, referring to the long-term trend line that smooths out short-term price noise.
“Although this line is trending downwards, the market has failed to break through it for the past six days. On the other hand, as the decline is quite modest, it resembles nothing more than a breather following a rally.”
CoinShares also noted that last week’s inflow surge came alongside a compromise on stablecoin yield treatment under the CLARITY Act, which the Senate Banking Committee is expected to consider next week. The regulatory progress is one of the few clean tailwinds the market has had since the Iran war began, and it is showing up in the flow data rather than the price action.
For now, bitcoin holding $81,000 after a CPI print this hot and a Treasury yield setup this tight is the kind of behaviour that suggests structural buyers are still active under the price. Whether that holds through next week’s Senate markup and the next round of macro data is the next test.