A hundred-dollar oil price stirs up another yield storm! US Treasury yields and the dollar both strengthen, while Bitcoin faces a major stress test after hitting an eight-month high.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies fell collectively on Thursday, cooling a rally that had recently pushed Bitcoin to an eight-month high. After rising 9% over the past week and breaking above $87,000 earlier this week to touch an eight-month high, Bitcoin began to come under pressure from rising international oil prices and the simultaneous strengthening of long-dated US Treasury yields and the dollar driven by oil lingering above $100. The hundred-dollar oil price can be said to have transmitted global macro pressure into the crypto market. On Thursday, Bitcoin fell as much as 1.6% intraday to $82,882, while Ether and other major cryptocurrencies also retreated. This round of adjustment was accompanied by weakness in the stock market, reflecting investors' behavior of locking in recent gains and adjusting risk exposure as dollar funding conditions tightened. Still, there remains an optimistic view on whether the rebound can continue: Bitcoin had previously broken above its 50-week moving average, providing trend traders with a technical signal supporting further gains; some analysts therefore interpreted this pullback as a consolidation within an uptrend. The next pricing focus is whether macro pressure can ease, and position adjustments after the quarterly expiry of about $15 billion in Bitcoin options on Friday. The direct catalyst for international oil prices rising again was the tough signals released by both the US and Iran during the UN General Assembly, as well as the fact that conditions for restoring normal navigation through the Strait of Hormuz have still not been met. On September 23, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stressed in New York that Iran would not yield to US pressure but still believed in diplomacy; this statement responded to Trump's military threat the previous day. Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei also said at the same time that Iran would not reopen the strait before its conditions were met. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have exchanged information through Qatari intermediaries, discussing the reopening of the strait and the lifting of the US maritime blockade on Iranian ports, but significant differences remain between the two sides. This means that diplomatic contact has not yet translated into an executable arrangement for restoring transportation, and the market still needs to price in uncertainty over Gulf energy supply. Price changes show that this round of energy shock has already reached a considerable scale: Brent crude's September 23 settlement price rose 3.86% to $103.08 per barrel; based on the settlement prices of front-month contracts on each trading day, this was up about 42.2% from $72.48 on February 27, the last trading day before the war broke out, and up about 11.8% from $92.17 on August 24. At 17:40 Beijing time on September 24, Brent rose further to $105.51, up 2.36% on the day. Although it briefly fell below $100 during the period, the subsequent rapid rebound showed that the market's optimistic expectations for supply recovery can still easily be interrupted by negotiating differences. The anchor of global asset pricing rises: how the dollar and the 10-year US Treasury yield curve compress the upside space for crypto assets What the market is trading now is already the possibility of further policy tightening after the Fed's rate hike. The Fed raised rates by 25 basis points on September 16, lifting the target range for the federal funds rate to 3.75%-4.00%. Subsequently, stronger-than-expected US purchasing managers' indices, weak Treasury auctions, and Fed Governor Michael Barr's remarks about further rate hikes jointly reinforced tightening expectations. Based on market pricing in the morning of September 24, the probability of another rate hike in October was close to 70%, up from about 50% a week earlier; the dollar index held near a two-month high around 101.08. The core logic is that an energy price shock combined with still-resilient economic demand has led the market to raise the future policy rate path and increase the relative yield attractiveness of dollar assets. The long end of the bond market is also repricing. In early European trading on September 24, the 10-year US Treasury yield reached 5.145% at one point; the 30-year yield rose to 5.444% at one point, the highest level since 2004. From the perspective of fixed-income pricing mechanisms, long-term Treasury yields can be decomposed into the expected average level of future short-term rates and the term premium: the former reflects how high and how long the market expects the Fed to keep rates, while the latter compensates investors for bearing the risk of long-term inflation and rate uncertainty. Energy inflation affects the pricing of both parts, while government debt supply and other financing needs also affect the allocation of long-term funds. Therefore, the rise in long-end yields reflects a combination of changes in the policy path, growth resilience, and the compensation required to hold long-term bonds. This change is transmitted to the crypto market mainly through three channels: opportunity cost of holding, financing conditions, and cross-asset risk budgeting. Bitcoin itself does not generate interest income, and when tightening expectations increase the yield attractiveness of cash and short-term dollar assets, the expected return investors require to hold Bitcoin also rises; higher dollar funding costs may reduce the appeal of leveraged strategies. When stocks and bonds fluctuate at the same time, cross-asset investors may also cut overall risk exposure, making crypto assets that had previously risen sharply targets for profit-taking. Research by the Bank for International Settlements also found that monetary policy tightening is often accompanied by a decline in risk-taking in crypto markets. Therefore, the essential logic behind this round of pullback in Bitcoin and other risk assets lies in the transmission of tighter global financial conditions to crypto assets, and their short-term performance remains sensitive to dollar liquidity and funding costs. Pullback after an eight-month high The momentum that recently pushed Bitcoin to an eight-month high has clearly cooled. The world's largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 1.6% to $82,882, after having risen above $87,000 earlier this week. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, fell to about $2,628. Smaller cryptocurrencies such as XRP, Solana and Zcash also declined. Broader market factors weighed on risk assets, prompting some investors to take profits after crypto's recent gains. Still, some analysts believe the pullback is only temporary and that cryptocurrencies still have room for further gains. FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said factors such as a stronger dollar, surging bond yields and falling stock prices triggered the profit-taking. "Despite the pullback, the uptrend is still continuing and has not ended, suggesting that this decline may only be a temporary pause along the way up," he said. During the recent rally, cryptocurrencies shook off a series of potential negative factors, including US lawmakers' failure to advance long-awaited crypto market structure legislation. "The crypto market has performed quite well over the past few weeks," said Rajiv Soni, head of international portfolio management at Wave Digital Assets. He added that Bitcoin's break above its 50-week moving average last Friday gave traders confirmation that the rally "still has legs." For Bitcoin investors, opportunities for profit-taking had previously been rare; after months of stagnation, Bitcoin rose 9% over the past week. "Bitcoin fell more because it had risen more before," said Ivan Li, head of trading at QCP Capital. "In fact, its move was in line with other assets." Investors are now watching global market trends for clues to the next move. With futures down 0.6%, the S&P 500 looked set to erase almost all of this week's gains. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1% as chip stocks sold off sharply. Meanwhile, selling continued at the long end of the US Treasury market, with the 30-year yield rising to its highest level since 2004, while the dollar was on track for its longest winning streak since May. Crypto traders are also watching the quarterly expiry of about $15 billion in Bitcoin options contracts on the Deribit exchange, with more than one-third of open interest set to expire on Friday. The put-to-call ratioa closely watched gauge measuring the number of options conferring the right to sell versus those conferring the right to buywas 0.70, indicating a larger number of contracts betting on price gains.