Bitcoin is heading into another Federal Reserve interest-rate decision while the US continues to rebuild the data-collection system used to produce its closely watched inflation figures.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics collected 66.3% of the targeted price observations in its commodities-and-services survey in September, according to figures updated on October 19. That was an improvement on the 65.9% recorded in August, but below the 67.6% collection rate from a year earlier.
The shortfall follows staffing and survey cuts introduced in 2025. The restoration of collection operations remains incomplete ahead of the Federal Reserve’s October 27–28 policy meeting.
The issue adds uncertainty to an already challenging inflation picture. US consumer prices rose by 3.7% in the year to September, up from 3.4% in August, while stronger readings have led investors to reconsider the prospect of further monetary tightening.
Bitcoin has previously reacted sharply to inflation data. Coinbase Institutional said in its October 16 market commentary that Bitcoin dropped from about $83,800 to below $82,000 in the hours after September’s hotter-than-expected consumer price index release. Two-year Treasury yields also moved sharply higher.
The latest BLS figures raise questions about the information supporting those measures, although the agency has not said that its recent inflation estimates contain a bias in either direction.
The BLS reduced consumer price collection in several US locations during summer 2025, suspending operations in Lincoln, Nebraska; Provo, Utah; and Buffalo, New York. It resumed recruitment, hiring and training in November 2025, and said in an October 22 update that collection would gradually increase as more field staff became operational.
September’s 66.3% rate compared with 65% in June and 67.4% in March.
How missing data affects the CPI
When prices cannot be collected directly, the BLS uses statistical methods to estimate them. These include applying price movements from comparable products in the same category and geographic area.
Such estimates may be less representative when unobserved prices behave differently from those that are recorded. However, the 33.7% non-collection rate does not mean that one-third of the CPI is estimated. The published figure relates to an unweighted survey of targeted price quotes and excludes separate housing observations and other data sources.
The agency has warned that lower response rates increase the risk of statistical bias, but has not found evidence that inflation is being systematically understated or overstated.
An August research paper using data from 2018 through 2023 found limited differences in headline inflation under alternative estimation methods, although some individual categories showed potential discrepancies. Those findings pre-date the 2025 cuts, so their effect on current inflation figures remains unquantified.
Coinbase Institutional said on October 23 that interest-rate futures indicated nearly an 80% chance of a December rate increase after producer prices rose 1.3% in September, their biggest monthly increase since March 2022.
The firm identified $80,000 to $82,000 as an important support range for Bitcoin. It overlaps with the estimated $81,300 average acquisition price of US spot Bitcoin ETF investors and the cryptocurrency’s 50-day moving average.
Two-year Treasuries were yielding close to 4.8%, according to Coinbase, increasing the opportunity cost of holding Bitcoin, which does not generate income. Bitcoin’s one-month implied volatility was near 35%, among its lowest historical levels, while perpetual futures funding rates increased as leveraged traders rebuilt bullish positions.
The BLS data provides no evidence that September’s CPI overstated or understated inflation, or that investors changed their positions because of the agency’s restoration work. The immediate focus is how the Fed assesses the available evidence when it announces its October 28 decision.
