Brent Above $106, Fed Hike Odds Climb to 64% as Crypto Sells Off

Almost every major crypto token moved lower through overnight trading and into Thursday’s U.S. open as Brent crude pushed above $106 a barrel, long-dated Treasury yields climbed to multi-year highs, and traders raised the implied odds of a Federal Reserve rate increase next week to 64%.

At 8 a.m. ET, traders were pricing a quarter-point increase in September at 52.5%. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics released August producer price data at 8:30 a.m. ET, the same contract traded at 62.5% by 11 a.m. and 63.5% by early afternoon. Brent, up 11.7% across eight sessions, sat underneath both the inflation print and the move in yields.

CoinGecko data showed bitcoin at $77,120, down 2.1% over 24 hours and 5.1% over seven days, after trading between $76,748 and $78,774. Ether changed hands at $2,448.88, down 1.9% on the day and 2.7% on the week. XRP fell 4.8% to $1.35, Solana dropped 3.6% to $99.69, and BNB lost 4.4% to $708.37. Total crypto market value stood at $2.64 trillion on $94.2 billion of volume, with bitcoin dominance at 58.5%.

Brent crude reached its highest level since May 19

Brent traded at $106.83 a barrel on Thursday afternoon, up 5.6% on the day and at its highest level since May 19. The contract has gained 11.7% since settling at $95.63 on Sept. 2.

U.S. Central Command said on Sept. 8 that its forces had destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers on Sept. 8 after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the prior two days. In its public release, the command named the M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, M/T Riesco, and M/T Derya, placed four of the strikes in the Gulf of Oman and one near Kharg Island, and said crews were told to abandon ship before the vessels were hit. The release did not mention the Strait of Hormuz. A Sept. 5 release described three earlier tanker strikes.

The U.S. Maritime Administration published advisory 2026-011 on Sept. 9 stating that 「Iran continues to threaten and conduct strikes on commercial vessels transiting the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz (SoH) and Gulf of Oman.」 The advisory replaced 2026-004, which expired the same day, making it a scheduled six-month renewal rather than a direct response to this week’s strikes.

The Energy Information Administration said its Weekly Petroleum Status Report for the week ending Sept. 4 would be published at 12 p.m. ET Thursday, delayed from Wednesday because of the Sept. 7 federal holiday. Its latest report, for the week ending Aug. 28, showed commercial crude inventories down 4.5 million barrels to 424.5 million barrels, a data point that predates both sets of strikes.

Producer prices lifted the curve

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Sept. 10 that the Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.4% in August on a seasonally adjusted basis, after 0.1% in July and a 0.1% decline in June. Final demand prices rose 5.4% over 12 months. Core prices, excluding foods, energy, and trade services, rose 0.3% on the month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

Thadeu Dos Santos, regional director at brokerage Infinox, said in commentary sent to The Defiant Thursday morning: 「The figures reinforced concerns that inflation remains persistent, particularly given the combination of elevated oil prices and a labour market that has proved to be more robust than anticipated.」

Bond yields moved with it. The 10-year Treasury yield reached 4.92% on Thursday, its highest level since Oct. 25, 2023. The 30-year yield rose to 5.34%, above every daily close of the past five years. Treasury’s official daily curve put the 10-year at 4.83% and the 30-year at 5.28% at Wednesday’s close, both the highest readings of the month.

On Polymarket, the implied probability of a quarter-point increase at the Sept. 15-16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting stood at 63.5%, while no change was priced at 36.5%. A half-point or larger increase was at 0.85%, and a quarter-point cut was at 0.35%. Volume across the event reached $113 million, with $21.6 million traded in the quarter-point increase contract alone. That contract was at 41.5% on Sept. 3 and first crossed 50% on Sept. 4. The Defiant reported on Aug. 31 that traders had already made a September increase the favored outcome, when the same contract stood at 55.5%.

The European Central Bank moved first. Its Governing Council decided Thursday to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points. Effective Sept. 16, the deposit facility rate will be 2.50%, the main refinancing operations rate 2.65%, and the marginal lending facility rate 2.90%.

Equities and gold also lost ground. The S&P 500 traded at 7,606 on Thursday afternoon, down 0.4% from Wednesday’s close. The Nasdaq Composite traded at 26,163, down 0.3%. Gold was at $4,405 an ounce, down 1.3%.

Market breadth tilted heavily to the downside

At a single 1:10 p.m. ET snapshot, 103 of the 125 largest non-stablecoin tokens were lower, 21 were higher, and one was unchanged. The count excluded stablecoins, wrapped assets, and liquid-staking derivatives.

The selling was concentrated in mid-caps. Bitcoin fell 2.1% and ether fell 1.9%, while each of the 10 largest decliners among the 150 biggest tokens dropped more than 10%.

DefiLlama data showed DeFi total value locked down 1.6% over 24 hours to $87.13 billion from $88.54 billion on Wednesday. It still stood 1.9% above the level from a week earlier. Stablecoin supply barely moved, at $311.83 billion versus $311.98 billion on Wednesday, equal to a 0.37% gain over seven days and a 1.67% gain over 30 days. That works out to about $1.2 billion of net issuance on the week, or roughly 0.4% of supply.

Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index read 69, or greed, on Thursday, up from 66 on Wednesday but down from 74 on Sept. 4. The gauge has remained in greed territory since Aug. 20.

ETF flows turned negative

According to Farside Investors, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $120.2 million of outflows on Wednesday and $46.6 million on Tuesday. Thursday’s figures were due after the U.S. close. Those two sessions followed inflows of $174.6 million on Sept. 4 and $730.8 million on Sept. 3.

Spot ether ETFs took in $2.1 million on Wednesday after $24.3 million of outflows on Tuesday. Neither product complex traded Monday because of a federal holiday.

Among gainers, Ether.fi had an identifiable catalyst

The article listed the day’s notable gainers as follows:

Ether.fi was the biggest gainer in the group with a catalyst the report could identify, though that catalyst was a week old. The ether.fi DAO approved a Snapshot proposal titled Programmatic ETHFI Buybacks & Ecosystem Growth. Voting opened Aug. 30 at 01:31 UTC and closed Sept. 3 at 01:31 UTC, passing with 1,141,999 votes in favor, none against, and none abstaining. The proposal committed the foundation to buying ETHFI weekly through automated TWAPs and stated that 「no new ETHFI is minted and circulating supply does not increase from this proposal.」

Ether.fi has not published an execution date. Its blog has had no new post since Aug. 13, and the buyback program page shows neither completed purchases nor a schedule. Whether any ETHFI has actually been bought under the authorization remains unverified.

Deposits moved the other way. DefiLlama data showed Ether.fi TVL falling to $4.87 billion on Thursday from $4.97 billion on Sept. 7, a 2% decline over three days, even as the token was up 15.5% over seven days.

Falcon Finance’s FF showed the widest gap between price and collateral among the names listed. Its TVL has stayed within 0.1% of $1.176 billion since Aug. 28 while FF gained 65.2% over seven days. Falcon’s own news page has carried nothing since Aug. 31.

VeChain’s chain TVL rose to $1.58 million on Thursday from $1.22 million on Sept. 5. Against a market value of $688 million, that DeFi footprint is too small to explain the move on its own. VeChain’s blog has published nothing since Aug. 6.

Ape and Pepe, the day’s biggest gainer, turned over $16 million against a $301 million market value, a ratio of about 5%. No project announcement accompanied the move.

LAPTOP lost nearly two-thirds in 24 hours

The article listed the day’s notable decliners as follows:

Hunter Biden’s Laptop, or LAPTOP, fell for a second straight day, dropping 64.9% over 24 hours to $0.6088 and leaving it with a $212 million market value. The Defiant had previously covered the token’s Sept. 9 launch.

Buyers outnumbered sellers while the token fell. Across three LAPTOP/USDC pools on Base, the deepest pool recorded roughly 10,700 buys against 6,700 sells, while the smallest pool logged about 13,200 buys against 10,400 sells. Total pool liquidity stood at $1.33 million. The token’s site still showed zero tokens burned and zero dollars sent to charity, and it had published no statement since launch.

Pons was the third-biggest decliner, one week after reaching a record $0.971 on Sept. 5. On Sept. 3, Pons said Uniswap Labs had bought PONS 「for long-term alignment」 without disclosing size, price, or wallet, a claim The Defiant previously reported. UNI fell 9.6% on Thursday as well. Pons’ homepage carried an undated notice saying 「we are upgrading the backend ahead of a new rollout」 and that 「launches and market data may load slowly or read out of date.」

Pump.fun posted higher revenue while its token slid. DefiLlama data showed daily fees reaching $1.41 million on Wednesday, the highest since Sept. 1 and 10.9% above Tuesday, while PUMP fell 20.1%. The protocol allowed creators to launch coins priced in tokenized stocks on Wednesday, which The Defiant covered, and the token fell through that announcement.

The privacy names that had run hardest gave back the most. Dash dropped 13.5% while still holding a 17.4% weekly gain tied to DashCon 2026 on Sept. 3, its first conference since 2019. Zcash fell 11.2% against an 18.3% weekly gain. Monero, which did not participate in the earlier run, slipped 0.5%.

Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap had no token-specific catalyst in the report. The term Bitcoin Cash appeared in six filings on the SEC full-text search system between Sept. 4 and Sept. 10, but all were fund prospectuses or corporate filings that listed the token without taking action on it. Uniswap’s blog has had no post since Aug. 24, and its Snapshot space has carried no proposal since July 26. DefiLlama data showed Uniswap daily fees ranging between $6.89 million and $8.29 million every day this month, rising to $7.81 million on Wednesday from $7.43 million on Tuesday.

All prices and market data in the article were as of 1:10 p.m. ET on Sept. 10, 2026. The Defiant said CoinGecko’s aggregate 24-hour change in total crypto market value showed -4.93% at that same moment, a reading inconsistent with its own component data, so the figure was omitted.