For months, crypto traders have been timing their leverage, funding, and liquidity to match monthly U.S. inflation trends.
This week, those hoping for new macro data from the recent vote to reopen the government were disappointed to find nothing left on the tapes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in October that:
“No other releases will be rescheduled or produced until normal government services resume.”
The last completed CPI report covering September was released late Oct. 24 following the disruption of normal operations due to the shutdown.
The index level for all items was 324.80, and both the headline inflation rate and core inflation rate were 3.0% compared to the previous year. Trading Economics currently has December 10th as the next scheduled date on the CPI calendar.
Why is the missing October print important to the market?
The gap left in October may never be filled. Because the closure extended throughout the data collection period, field staff were unable to collect price samples on which the CPI is based. It may be collated and included in the December update, but current indications are that there are gaps.
The White House press secretary blamed the gap on Democrats, claiming:
“Democrats may have caused permanent damage to the federal statistical system by making it likely that October’s CPI and jobs numbers will never be released.”
Without this research, the BLS could not issue an update on November 13, the standard day the market receives October statistics. Officials have suggested that it may not be able to rebuild in October even after operations return to normal because of a lack of key benchmark data.
For the cryptocurrency market, the absence of numbers was more important than any hypothetical value. Bitcoin and Ethereum entered this week bracing for a volatility event, but it never materialized. Although volatility occurred regardless.
Spot Bitcoin fell about 6% during the session, sending the entire crypto market into a deep red. Liquidity remained thin and open interest in derivatives fell slightly, a move consistent with the market awaiting macroeconomic information that did not materialize.
The lack of CPI broke the usual chain linking inflation data and cryptocurrency price movements.
More moderate content usually raises expectations for more accommodative Federal Reserve policy. U.S. Treasury yields have fallen slightly, the dollar has weakened, and risky assets such as Bitcoin have been bought.
An increase in printed materials will conversely raise expectations for policy tightening, putting pressure on long-term assets.
In the absence of data, the interest rate desk was unable to obtain new information on real yields or break-even inflation rates. The Fed’s outlook shifts to speeches, market-based inflation swaps, and trades that take into account secondary indicators.
This macro void has pushed cryptocurrencies further into their role as proxies for expectations about future policy, rather than simple high-beta extensions of stocks.
Without CPI, desks focused more on liquidity, ETF flows, and option positioning. New Directions Funding rates for major futures pairs fell as leverage remained unchanged.
All of this brings our attention to the next date on the CPI calendar: December 10th. Trading Economics lists the date as “Next Release,” but the value field is empty, emphasizing that it is a placeholder rather than a confirmed data set.
Impact of October’s unbridgeable CPI gap on the market
The market now needs to estimate three broad directions for what will happen that day.
One way is for the BLS to somehow manage the reconstruction of the October CPI using subsamples, imputation, or model-based estimates.
Traders may then treat the numbers as lower quality than a regular printout because the underlying research does not follow standard methodology. The cryptocurrency industry’s reaction may be muted.
If the key monthly rate of change remains below 0.2%, consistent with a controlled disinflationary trend, the usual pattern would be a weaker dollar, lower yields, and a rebound in Bitcoin.
Ethereum is likely to outperform in the next 1-2 days as traders once again grapple with high beta risks. Smaller altcoins tend to follow, often hovering in the 5-12% range as liquidity shifts down the risk curve.
If the reconstructed numbers and clean November print fall into the “unstable” zone of around 0.3-0.4% month-on-month, the policy message will be less clear.
Yields can move within a narrow range, and cryptocurrencies could end the day close to where they started. Bitcoin could trade sideways and altcoins could underperform as traders reduce marginal risk.
Perpetual futures funding rates could slip into slightly negative territory as short-term hedge flows dominate.
The third path is for inflation data to be hot above 0.5%. The result would strengthen expectations that the Fed will need to maintain tight policy for an extended period of time, pushing the dollar higher and Treasury yields higher across the curve.
In previous episodes, such a combination was associated with a 3-6% intraday drop in Bitcoin, sharp moves in Ethereum, and widespread deleveraging in altcoins.
Liquidation amounts in such washouts are often two to four times higher than recent norms as overleveraged positions are forced out.
How the CPI Void Reshapes Short-Term Macro Trading
A more unusual scenario is that December 10 arrives with no CPI for October at all because the BLS determines that it cannot reliably reconstruct the missing surveys or that there will be additional delays in the pipeline.
In that world, the next clean reading would reflect the situation in November, and the gap between hard inflation data points would widen to almost two months.
To anchor expectations, the Treasury will need to place greater emphasis on break-even markets and inflation swaps. The term “above-the-curve premium” may incorporate a greater risk buffer against the uncertainty surrounding true price movements.
Trading Economics currently expects inflationary pressures to continue next year, with CPI rising month-on-month.
When it comes to digital assets, a world with unreliable or erratic inflation data is introducing a new kind of macro regime.
Cryptocurrencies will become a more “macro-smoothed” asset class, trading on slower-moving forces such as ETF flows, structural demand from long-only allocators, corporate balance sheet decisions, and dollar liquidity plumbing.
Short-term volatility driven by scheduled data will decline, replaced by episodes of long-term uncertainty punctuated by policy communications and idiosyncratic crypto events.
This regime will likely strengthen Bitcoin’s position as the sector’s benchmark. When macroeconomic uncertainty is high but data is sparse, traders have less appetite for tokens outside the risk spectrum.
Capital tends to be consolidated into assets with deeper liquidity, clearer narratives, and more developed derivatives markets. Altcoins that rely on high leverage or speculative momentum as price support may run out of these conditions until regular macroeconomic releases resume.
The CPI gap has also increased the importance of alternative data sources and nowcasting models that attempt to infer inflation from high-frequency information such as card spend, fares, and online prices.
Traditional macro desks already track these metrics, but without monthly BLS checkpoints, they become more meaningful.
If the formal inflation pipeline remains unstable, crypto traders may need to incorporate such tools more systematically.
For now, the CPI story is less about upside and downside surprises and more about blank lines on the macro calendar.
The last confirmed reading shows an index level of 324.80 in September, with an inflation rate of 3.0% in both the composite and core indicators.
The next entry is a blank field for December 10th, which may or may not contain missing data for October. Cryptocurrency markets are trading around this absence, trying to determine whether the world’s most-watched inflation indicator will reappear or if the macro vacuum will continue.
(Tag translation) Bitcoin
