A stronger-than-forecast July inflation reading pushed bitcoin to a day low of $77,641, with XRP falling harder. The same day, IBIT and ETHA logged a seventh consecutive session of net inflows.
Bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $77,641.16 on Wednesday as July's inflation data came in above forecast. The token last traded at $78,306.87, down 0.28% on the day, after stalling just under $80,000 in Tuesday's session. XRP fell harder, down 3.4% intraday, as leverage unwound across altcoin positions.
Headline inflation missed its forecast to the upside, and markets treated the number as evidence the Federal Reserve has less room to ease in September than some had priced in before the release.
Set against that reaction, money kept moving the other way through the ETF channel. BlackRock's IBIT and ETHA funds logged $284.42 million and $146.44 million of net inflows Tuesday, extending a streak to seven consecutive days and bringing trailing seven-day Bitcoin ETF inflows to $2.57 billion. Buyers kept adding through the ETF channel even as spot price gave back ground, a pattern more consistent with investors treating the pullback as an entry point than with a change in institutional appetite.
A $6.4 billion options position tied to bitcoin comes due Friday, a date already shaping trading ahead of it. Bitcoin now needs to recover roughly $1,700 by Friday just to retest the level it failed to hold on Tuesday, with that options expiry poised to sharpen dealer hedging around $80,000 either way.
Neither the inflation data nor the ETF-flow figures settle which force wins from here. What Wednesday's session shows is that they are pulling in opposite directions at the same time, with altcoins absorbing a disproportionate share of the reaction so far.