Bitcoin falls below $20K after hot US CPI data

Bitcoin price slipped below $20,000 on Wednesday after headline US inflation data showed the consumer price index (CPI) came in hotter than expected.

Data by the US Labor Department showed CPI rose 9.1% year-over-year for the hottest move since 1981 and 1.3% month-on-month in June, the fastest since 2005. 

The data came in hotter than the estimated 1.1% month-on-month and 8.8% year-over-year, continuing the hot streak that has aligned with the unprecedented rise in the cost of living.

Bitcoin falls below $20,000

US stock futures fell sharply after the inflation report, with the S&P 500 futures dipping more than 1.5% and Nasdaq futures sliding by 1.9%. The Dow futures also fell, and were down more than 300 points, or -1% ahead of market open.

The reaction on Wall Street was also seen across the crypto market. As stock futures plunged, the top cryptocurrency Bitcoin dipped below the psychologically important level of $20,000.

The volatility pushed BTC/USD to lows of $18,892 on crypto exchange Coinbase. At the time of writing, Bitcoin price was down 4.8% in the past 24 hours, according to data on CoinGecko.

BTC/USD price fell below $19,000 on Coinbase. Source: TradingView

The rest of the crypto market was also seeing fresh downside pressure, with Ethereum down 4.8% near $1,000 and BNB, XRP, Cardano and Solana also nursing fresh losses of 3.7%, 2.5%, 6% and 5.7% respectively.