Hot CPI print revives Fed rate-hike fears, but altcoins shrug off Bitcoin's stumble

The day's main driver was August's CPI report, which showed core inflation rising 0.3% — one tick above what economists had forecast. That single data point pushed market-implied odds of a Fed rate hike to around 70%, reversing the optimism that had been building since the prior session. Bitcoin gave up an early gain and settled near $77,362, up just 0.37% on the day — a flat result that masks the intraday whipsaw. What's notable is that the inflation print didn't sink the broader market. Ethereum climbed 2.65% to $2,531, BNB rose 3.28% to $737, Solana gained 2.58% to $102, and XRP added 2.28% to $1.37. Zcash and Monero — both privacy-focused assets — led the top-15 with gains of 4.11% and 4.72% respectively, though no specific catalyst explains those moves beyond the general improvement in sentiment. The Fear & Greed index moved from 56 to 63, crossing from neutral into greed territory, which may have encouraged traders to rotate into assets that had lagged Bitcoin's recent run. Polkadot was the clearest casualty of the macro news, falling 4.47% as mid-cap altcoins with less liquidity absorbed the rate-hike anxiety more directly. The pattern — Bitcoin flat, large-cap altcoins up, select mid-caps down — points to a market that absorbed the CPI shock without panicking, but redistributed capital selectively rather than rallying uniformly.

• –A social-engineering attack tricked Revolut into disclosing Bitcoin activity and passport data for an unknown number of users, raising fresh concerns about how crypto exchanges handle government data requests.
• –Blockstream publicly refused a ransom demand from attackers who exploited the Liquid Network, leaving 600 BTC still at risk and drawing attention to security gaps in Bitcoin sidechain infrastructure.
• –India's securities regulator SEBI launched a tokenized bond pilot exceeding $100 million, a significant institutional step toward real-world asset tokenization in one of the world's largest economies.
• –Robinhood reported a 61% jump in crypto trading volume for August, pointing to rising retail participation even as macro headwinds kept institutional positioning cautious.