Inflation is up, Bitcoin is down.
The biggest cryptocurrencies in the world dipped sharply Thursday after the latest inflation data showed wholesale prices are rising much faster than expected. The price of Bitcoin is down 3.8% on the day ($117,900), Ethereum is down 4% ($4,535), and Ripple is down 6.1% ($3.07) according to CoinMarketCap.
Crypto prices are responding to the Producer Price Index (PPI) for July, which measures the average change in prices from U.S. manufacturers and service providers. It rose by 0.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the largest monthly increase since March 2022, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That 0.9% increase was three times higher than was expected, and that’s a bad sign for Americans worried about high prices because the PPI numbers tend to be a signal of what’s to come for the average consumer. It also means that the Federal Reserve is much less likely to cut interest rates in the short term, something that Wall Street was pretty universally expecting to happen in September. But not anymore.Experts were surprised
CNBC anchor Rick Santelli, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump’s economic policies, was shocked in real-time while delivering the news Thursday morning.
