October 7 was a bond-market day, not a crypto day. The Fed minutes say another hike is likely.

What moved, measured from Tuesday's US close

The cleanest way to read Wednesday, October 7 is from the last US cash close, 20:00 UTC on Tuesday, to the low each market reached during the day. On Spectre's tape the 10-year Treasury yield rose from 5.27% to a high of 5.364% at 13:42 UTC, and the 30-year from 5.64% to 5.731%. The dollar index rose 0.58% to 102.45. Gold fell 2.2% to $4,105.8 and silver 4.0% to $59.35, both at 12:45 UTC. The S&P 500 was down 0.71% at its low and the Nasdaq 100 1.01%. The long-bond ETF TLT lost 1.1% and the high-yield ETF HYG 0.4%. ^{1, 5}

Crypto fell with them. On Coinbase, Bitcoin went from $85,610 at Tuesday's close to $82,733 at 13:48 UTC, down 3.4%. Solana fell 4.4% to its low in the same minute. Ether fell 5.7%, to $2,537.55 at 17:40 UTC. ¹

Oil is the one market that went the other way, and it is better read as a cause than a casualty. Brent was already $101.01 at Tuesday's close. It reached $102.50 at 13:53 UTC, after Spectre's wire record logged "Stocks and bonds drop as Hormuz attacks push oil prices higher" at 11:24 UTC, then slid to $99.76 by 17:59. WTI traced the same arc, from $89.80 to $90.92 and back to $88.06. ¹

The pattern matters more than any single number. Assets that pay no coupon or pay a fixed one, from gold to long Treasuries to Bitcoin, all fell while yields and the dollar rose. That is what a rates shock looks like. A crypto-specific sell-off would have left gold and bonds alone.

Long yields at 2002 levels, and a strong auction

Treasury's official par yield curve closed Tuesday at 5.27% for the 10-year, 5.64% for the 30-year and 4.79% for the 2-year. Spectre's yield feed prints only in US hours, so it cannot time the overnight move; its first print on Wednesday, at 12:45 UTC, already showed the 10-year at 5.343% and the 30-year at 5.722%. Spectre's wire record shows a report of the 10-year at 5.3496%, "highest since 2002", carrying a source time of 10:22 UTC. Most of the rise therefore happened in Asian and European hours, before New York opened. ^{1, 5}

I checked the "since 2002" claim against the daily constant-maturity history Spectre stores. Before this year, the last daily close at or above 5.35% for the 10-year was April 2, 2002, and the last close at or above 5.72% in the 30-year series was June 10, 2002, during the years when Treasury had suspended the bond and published an extrapolated 30-year rate. Wednesday's levels are intraday prints compared with daily closes, so the comparison is approximate, but it holds: long-dated US borrowing costs are where they last were 24 years ago. ¹

At 17:00 UTC the Treasury sold $39 billion of reopened 10-year notes at a high yield of 5.300%, with bid-to-cover of 2.77. The September reopening had cleared at 4.834% with cover of 2.71. TreasuryDirect's auction history shows no 10-year auction at or above 5.30% since November 8, 2000, when the high yield was 5.865%. On Spectre's feed the 10-year fell from 5.322% at 16:59 UTC to 5.269% at 17:26, back to Tuesday's close. That looks like demand turning up at these levels, though one auction cannot carry that conclusion alone. ^{6, 7, 1}

Crypto fell in two legs, and the first had no headline

Bitcoin's largest move came overnight. From the 01:07 UTC close to the 02:06 close it fell 2.1%, from $85,468 to $83,650, with a low of $83,551. Almost all of it came in 15 minutes: Bitcoin was only 0.25% lower at 01:51 UTC, then fell 1.9% between 01:52 and 02:06. Ether fell 3.5% and Solana 2.7% over the same hour, with the same shape. Spectre collected $101.2 million of long liquidations against $4.4 million of shorts between 01:08 and 02:07 UTC across Binance, OKX and Bybit, $89.7 million of it in the 15 minutes from 01:52, and composite Bitcoin open interest fell 3.4%, from $32.05 billion to $30.96 billion. That is a long cascade: leveraged buyers forced out, each closure a market sell. ¹

I could not find an outside trigger for it. Spectre's crypto news feed for 00:00 to 02:30 UTC has nine items, none of them market-moving. The closest in time, Cointelegraph's 01:48 UTC report that Bitcoin.de trading remained halted after Germany's regulator rejected its MiCA application, concerns a single venue whose halt was already in place, which is not a plausible driver of a global drop. The macro wire's loudest item, "Explosions reported in Kyiv", was recorded at 00:20 UTC, about 90 minutes before the sharp part of the drop, and carried an August 27 source time. Other markets did lean the same way in that hour: gold slipped 0.25% and silver 0.47% between 01:05 and 02:06 UTC while the dollar index edged up. The honest reading is that crypto entered the day carrying leveraged longs, and a modest cross-asset drift was enough to start the unwind. That is an inference from the data, not an identified cause. ¹

The second leg ran through the US morning. From the 11:23 UTC close, the minute before the Hormuz headline was logged, Bitcoin fell 1.2% to its 13:48 low, and Solana 1.6%. Between 11:24 and 14:00 UTC Spectre recorded $58.5 million of long liquidations against $13.3 million of shorts. Across the whole session to 18:55 UTC, the totals were $256.4 million of longs and $99.1 million of shorts. These are lower bounds, because exchanges do not publish every liquidation. ¹

Two positioning measures complete the picture. Bitcoin's open-interest-weighted funding rate stayed between -0.0043% and +0.0059% per funding interval all day, well below the 0.01% neutral rate, so longs were not paying a premium going in. And Binance's share of accounts positioned long in Bitcoin rose from 51.8% at Tuesday's close to 62.3% by 18:00 UTC; in ether it rose from 72.6% to 77.2%. More accounts bought the drop as it happened. That counts accounts, not dollars, but it means the dip was not met with surrender. ¹

Ether had a second problem

At 12:40 UTC CoinDesk reported that Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said the company would stop buying ether once its holdings reach 5% of circulating supply. CoinDesk put Bitmine's holdings at more than 6 million ETH, about 4.9% of supply, roughly 100,000 tokens short of the target. A buyer that has been absorbing supply since mid-2025 now has a stated end point. ⁹

The data does not let that headline carry the whole gap. Ether was already lagging before it: 3.5% down in the overnight hour against 2.1% for Bitcoin, then 0.9% lower between 02:06 and 12:39 UTC while Bitcoin was flat. After the report, from 12:39 UTC to 17:59, the last minute before the Fed release, ether fell another 1.0% and Bitcoin 0.6%. Composite ether open interest rose 7.3%, from $18.95 billion at 02:05 UTC to $20.34 billion at 18:50 UTC, while the price fell. New positions were being opened into the decline, which fits traders adding shorts, though the total alone cannot say which side. ^{1, 9}

What the Fed minutes said

The Federal Reserve released the minutes of its September 15 to 16 meeting at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, 18:00 UTC. At that meeting "all participants supported raising the target range for the federal funds rate 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent", and the statement passed 12 to 0. Spectre's September 16 report covered the decision itself. ^{2, 3, 14}

The sentence that matters for the next three months is this one: "most participants assessed that another increase in the target range for the federal funds rate would likely be appropriate by year end." The minutes add that participants "approached each meeting with an open mind". On the reasoning, many participants "emphasized that a higher path for the target range would be prudent on risk-management grounds, providing insurance against inflation remaining persistently above target due to stronger-than-expected demand or further adverse supply shocks." Several "viewed the current policy rate as not restrictive or only mildly restrictive." ²

On inflation, participants "had not seen sufficient progress on lowering inflation in recent months" and named two pressures: geopolitical developments "which had pushed up prices for crude oil and refined fuel products", and "surging AI-related investments". On the bond market, a few participants "discussed the potential factors behind the recent rise in longer-term Treasury yields, such as incoming data that pointed to a stronger economy, increased expectations for AI-related borrowing, and geopolitical developments", while many said financial conditions still appeared supportive of growth. Read against Wednesday, that is the important part: in September the Committee saw higher long yields and higher energy prices, and concluded it might need to do more, not less. ²

How markets took the minutes: they had already priced them

From the last tape sample before the release, at 17:59 UTC, to 18:53 UTC, the 10-year yield went from 5.284% to 5.282% and the 30-year from 5.667% to 5.665%. The S&P 500 moved from 7,801 to 7,803, the VIX was 15.14 at both points, the dollar index eased from 102.27 to 102.23 and gold was little changed at $4,136. Bitcoin rose 0.3% on Coinbase, from $83,098 at the 17:59 close to $83,382 at the 18:54 close, and ether 0.5%, from $2,549 to $2,561. Liquidations from 18:00 to 18:55 UTC were small and two-sided: $3.0 million of longs and $5.0 million of shorts. A document that says another hike is likely moved nothing, which suggests it said what markets already believed. ¹

Prediction markets did not move either. Polymarket's contract on a 25 basis point increase at the October meeting traded at 17.5 cents from 16:00 UTC, fell to 16.5 cents at 17:50 UTC, ten minutes before the release, and drifted to 15.5 cents from 18:40. At 18:55 UTC it was quoted 15 bid, 16 ask. The December contract held at 74.5 cents throughout and was quoted 74/75. Kalshi's October 25 basis point contract was quoted 16 bid, 17 ask in every one-minute record from 17:00 to 18:55 UTC; its December contract moved from 71/72 to 72/73 at about 18:23 UTC. Read as indicative midpoints, that is roughly one chance in six of an October hike and three in four of a December hike. A one-cent drift in a thin contract is not a repricing. ^{10, 11, 12, 13, 1}

The 17:50 step down in the October contract lined up with wire headlines recorded at 17:48 and 17:50 UTC in which Treasury Secretary Bessent and President Trump said yields, mortgage rates and oil would fall after the Iran conflict ends. That is a coincidence of timing in a thin contract, not an established cause. ¹

Ce qu'il faut surveiller ensuite

The minutes do not change the question for crypto. They confirm that the Fed reads higher energy prices and higher long yields as reasons to keep tightening, and markets already price a December hike as likely. The next tests are about whether the long end keeps rising.

Thursday, October 8, 17:00 UTC: $22 billion reopening of the 30-year bond. The September reopening cleared at 5.308%; Wednesday's 30-year traded between 5.653% and 5.731% in US hours. A second strong auction would support the idea that buyers are stepping in at these levels. ^{8, 1}
Wednesday, October 14: September CPI, on Spectre's economic calendar. The minutes name energy and AI-related demand as inflation pressures, so the energy and core goods components matter more than usual. ^{1, 2}
October 27 to 28: the next FOMC meeting, then December 8 to 9, with projections. Before the minutes, the October contracts priced about a one-in-six chance of a hike. ^{4, 10, 11}
In crypto: whether Binance's long-leaning account share unwinds, and whether ether's open interest, now above where it started the day, gets squeezed in either direction. Spectre's liquidation and positioning feeds will show it before the price does. ¹

Ce que cela établit et n'établit pas

It establishes that Wednesday's decline was cross-asset, that it coincided with long Treasury yields reaching levels last seen in 2002, that crypto's losses were amplified by long liquidations in two distinct windows, and that the minutes and the market reaction afterwards added little new. It does not establish what started Bitcoin's overnight slide, and I would not name a cause the data does not show. Nor does it show that the Bitmine news caused ether's underperformance, which began hours earlier.

All price, yield and positioning figures come from Spectre's preserved snapshot, which records the observation time and venue for every value, together with the sample limits: a yield feed that is silent outside US hours, cash indices that do not trade overnight, and liquidation streams that undercount. ¹

Sources

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