Crypto Market Recap Sep 12: Bitcoin Erased Its CPI Spike, Then Went Quiet Above $77,000 USD
Bitcoin spent Saturday doing almost nothing. It sat at $77,251 USD ($107,021 CAD) at 6:05pm ET, up 0.10% over 24 hours, and every hourly reading on Saturday landed inside a band $339 wide. Ethereum (ETH) was similarly parked at $2,522.98 USD ($3,496.75 CAD), up 0.33%.
The stillness is the story, because Friday was anything but. Bitcoin (BTC) ran up nearly $2,200 USD in two hours on the August inflation report and then handed back every cent of it before the US afternoon was over. Saturday simply confirmed what Friday afternoon had already decided: the print changed nothing, and nothing else happens until Wednesday.
Crypto trades continuously, so the figures below are a snapshot taken at 6:05pm ET, not a close.
The tape
| Asset | Price | 24h |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $77,251 USD / $107,021 CAD | +0.10% |
| Ethereum (ETH) | $2,522.98 USD / $3,496.75 CAD | +0.33% |
| XRP | $1.89 CAD | +0.52% |
| Solana (SOL) | $141 CAD | -0.92% |
| Cardano (ADA) | $0.29 CAD | +0.41% |
| Dogecoin (DOGE) | $0.12 CAD | +0.45% |
Source: Yahoo Finance, 6:05pm ET snapshot. Solana was the only major name in the red, and at -0.92% it was hardly a rout.
Bitcoin gave back the entire CPI move
The August Consumer Price Index landed at 8:30am ET Friday. Bitcoin stood at $77,014.88 USD at 8:00am ET. An hour later, with the number out, it was at $77,990.86. An hour after that it was at $79,206.56. That is a 2.85% move in two hours, which in this market counts as a genuine reaction.
Then it unwound. By 6:00pm ET Bitcoin was back at $77,104.18 USD, within $90 of where it stood before the number came out. Ethereum did the same thing with more drama, running from $2,457.61 USD at 8:00am to $2,626.74 by 10:00am, and finishing the afternoon at $2,516.33.
Saturday never left that resting place. Through the 6:05pm snapshot, Bitcoin’s lowest hourly mark was $77,105.43 USD and its highest was $77,444.01.
The quietest day in four weeks
Put a number on the calm and it stands out more than the price does.
Bitcoin’s high-to-low range on Saturday was 0.55%, against a median daily range of 2.75% over the past thirty days. Friday’s range was 4.80%, which is 8.7 times wider than Saturday’s. Measured against the last ninety sessions, Saturday sits in the 2nd percentile for daily range: only a handful of days all summer were tighter, and the most recent was August 15.
Ethereum tells the same story with different numbers. Its Saturday range was 1.36% against a 3.35% thirty-day median, and Friday’s 9.35% was nearly seven times wider.
Some of this is simply the weekend. The spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs that have become the largest marginal source of demand trade on stock exchanges, and stock exchanges are shut on Saturday. A weekend tape is a thinner tape, and thin tapes drift rather than trend.
But weekends are not usually this quiet, and the compression started Friday afternoon, while the ETFs were still open.
What the inflation report actually said
The August CPI release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics put headline inflation up 0.4% on the month, seasonally adjusted, and up 3.4% over the year. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, rose 0.3% on the month and 2.4% over the year.
That gap is the whole argument. Headline running a full percentage point above core is what an energy shock looks like in the data, and there has been an obvious one: oil jumped more than 8% in a single session this week on the exchanges of fire around the Strait of Hormuz. Whether a central bank should raise rates against an inflation number driven by a supply disruption it cannot influence is a real question, and it is the question the Federal Reserve has to answer on Wednesday.
The rate odds barely moved, and that is the point
Here is the detail that explains Saturday better than any chart. The CME FedWatch tool, which reads probabilities off 30-day fed funds futures, showed a 62.2% chance of a September hike on Thursday morning. By 7:23am Friday, before CPI, it showed 69.4%. By 11:32am Friday, three hours after the print, it showed roughly 69%.
The inflation report moved the price violently for two hours and moved the rate expectation essentially not at all. Traders had already priced the number. What they cannot price is the decision itself.
One honest caveat on that figure: Bloomberg reported Treasury-implied odds near 90% on Friday, which we cited in Friday’s recap. That is a different instrument reading a different curve, and we are not going to pretend the two reconcile. Futures say roughly seven in ten, swaps say nine in ten, and both agree a hike is the base case.
The Fed’s September meeting runs Tuesday and Wednesday, with the decision Wednesday afternoon and a fresh set of economic projections attached. The target range going in is 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent. Higher rates raise the bar for an asset that pays no interest at all, which is the mechanism behind most of what crypto has done this month. If the idea that a central bank decision sets the price of everything else is new to you, our guide to what moves a stock price works through the same plumbing on the equity side.
Two binary events in four days
Wednesday is not the only thing on the calendar. The Senate returns at 3:00pm Monday, and crypto market-structure legislation is on its plate. Our reading of the chamber’s own procedural record suggests the vote being widely billed for Tuesday more plausibly lands Wednesday, which we set out in the Senate’s crypto vote timing.
Two events that genuinely change things, inside four days, with a market that just demonstrated it will not take a position before them. That is a reasonable description of where crypto sits tonight.
The Canadian angle
Note that Bitcoin was up 0.10% in US dollars and 0.06% in Canadian dollars on the day. The difference is not rounding, it is the loonie: the Canadian dollar eased 0.24% against the greenback to 72.10 US cents, so a Canadian holder captured a fractionally different move than a US one. Over a day that is noise. Over a year of a strengthening or weakening currency it is not, and it is the reason a Canadian holding an unhedged crypto position is running two bets at once.
For anyone who would rather take the exposure through a brokerage account than a wallet, we rank the listed options in Canadian crypto stocks.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Crypto prices are a 6:05pm ET snapshot on September 12, 2026, not a close.
