Bitcoin bulls foiled again as price tumbles back to $86,000, giving up CPI gains and more

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Bitcoin bulls foiled again as price tumbles back to $86,000, giving up CPI gains and more Far softer than expected inflation numbers Thursday morning had markets racing early, but some are questioning the data. By Krisztian Sandor , Helene Braun | Edited by Stephen Alpher Dec 18, 2025, 5:46 p.m. Bitcoin (BTC) price on December 18 (CoinDesk) What to know : In what's now become a regular occurrence during this bear market, crypto markets swung from sizable gains to sizable losses in a very short time frame. Bitcoin early in U.S. action Thursday had popped above $89,000 after a far softer than forecast CPI print initially raised hopes for easier Fed monetary policy. Though well off session highs, equity markets remain nicely in the green for day, continuing their 2025 pattern of outperforming crypto. To the dismay of the bulls, crypto markets continued with their whipsawing action again on Thursday, with large early gains being more than reversed over a very short time frame. Happening over a period of a couple of hours as opposed to yesterday's couple of minutes, the size of today's reversal was nearly as large, with leading crypto bitcoin BTC $ 86,817.46 slumping from a session high of $89,300 to as low as $85,500. At press time BTC was changing hands at $86,000, lower by 0.8% over the past 24 hours. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . The early gains came alongside a much-cooler than forecast November U.S. Consumer Price Index report, with headline inflation tumbling all the way to 2.7% from 3% previously. That data had some quickly penciling in another Federal Reserve rate cut in January and helped send traditional markets jumping as well, with the Nasdaq gaining about 2% at its session high. Skeptics, however, quickly dove into the outlier inflation numbers. "Major issue was zeroing out rent/owner's equivalent rent (OER) in October," wrote well-followed economist Omair Sharif. Unless the BLS adjusts, he continued, it will artificially lower year-over-year CPI prints until April "This is totally inexcusable," wrote the WSJ's Nick Timiraos . "The BLS just assumed rent/OER were zero for October ... There is just no world in which this was a good idea." At the moment, markets appear to be agreeing with the skeptics, with odds of a January rate cut not having budged from their previous slim 24% chance. BTC rangebound, ETH hedging Traders in the crypto options market appear to be adjusting their expectations, with bitcoin and ether ETH $ 2,837.03 showing diverging sentiment, according to data from Wintermute. Bitcoin options activity points to a range-bound outlook as traders continue to sell downside protection below $85,000 and cap upside exposure above $100,000. This is "pointing to confidence in support holding and limited expectations for a sustained breakout in the near term," the market maker's OTC trading desk wrote in a note. Ether options, by contrast, show less conviction and more hedging behavior. Support appears to be forming around the $2,700 to $2,800 range, but upside calls above $3,100 are being sold aggressively, suggesting traders are seeking protection over upside. Market Wrap Bitcoin News More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. 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