Bitcoin (BTC) risked losing a key support level at $82,500 as Wall Street opened on Thursday, with oil prices climbing on mounting concerns over fresh United States military action against Iran.

Key points:

• Bitcoin returned to $81,000 for the first time since Sept. 21 amid fresh concerns over US-Iran military action.
• The US 30-year bond yield set another multidecade high as a senior Federal Reserve official signaled more interest-rate hikes to come.
• BTC price action increasingly suggested the loss of an important support level at $82,500.

Oil spikes over reports of fresh US-Iran strikes

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD dropping to $81,000 on Bitstamp during Thursday’s session — its lowest level since Sept. 21 and a return to price territory last seen nearly three weeks earlier.

Citing a Pentagon official and a source familiar with the matter, NBC News reported that the United States could be preparing fresh military strikes on Iran. The reports sent oil prices higher on the day, with WTI crude reaching $93.20 per barrel, its highest level since Oct. 2, and Brent crude hitting $105.88. Oil’s trajectory matters beyond the commodities tape: fuel prices feed directly into consumer inflation readings — the same metric the Fed is trying to guide back to its 2% goal.

Speaking to supporters at a rally in San Antonio, Texas, United States President Donald Trump said that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was making progress with Iran on a peace deal, while acknowledging little personal interest in a diplomatic outcome.

“I think the deal isn’t really something that I want to do, but they’re willing to offer us anything to stop,” Trump said, as quoted by the Independent, adding that he saw an end to the conflict coming “very soon.”

The US 30-year bond yield set a new 24-year high of 5.73% on the day before dropping to 5.65%, as markets stayed nervous about the war’s impact on fuel prices and inflation.

Comments by Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller added further pressure to yields on the day, after he argued for the need for further interest-rate hikes to bring inflation under control.

“If the economic data continue to come in as expected, I anticipate additional hikes to support a timelier return of inflation to our 2 percent goal. But there is some flexibility about when those hikes will occur,” he said in a speech at a Central Bank of Turkey forum in Istanbul.

“The hikes do not need to come at consecutive meetings, but they should be in place in an acceptable period of time.”

The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showed markets steadily increasing their bets on a 0.25% hike at the Fed’s December meeting, with the odds of that outcome passing 70% on Thursday. Consensus for the October meeting, meanwhile, continued to favor a pause at the current level of 3.75-4%. FedWatch distills federal funds futures pricing into implied odds for each Federal Open Market Committee decision, and with October and December the next two scheduled checkpoints, those meetings form the immediate macro backdrop against which crypto and other risk assets will trade.

Bitcoin $82,500 support hangs in the balance

BTC price action kept traders waiting for a decisive move around the $82,500 support level.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the level carries significance within Bitcoin’s broader rebound from multiyear lows near $57,000, owing to its similarities with the end of the2022 bear market. In technical analysis, support marks a zone where buying interest has previously halted declines, so a defense or a loss of the area would give traders a clearer read on whether the rebound structure remains intact.

“Bitcoin is still in a transitional phase and at critical technical juncture. ~$82500 is the deciding price point when it comes to where Bitcoin builds out its next market structure,” trader and analyst Rekt Capital wrote in an updated X analysis posted on the day.

Bitcoin’s dip below $82,000 exacerbated cross-crypto long liquidations, with leveraged long positions across digital assets worth around $430 million wiped out at the time of writing, according to CoinGlass data. Liquidations occur when exchanges force-close leveraged positions whose collateral no longer covers losses, and a cross-asset total of that size illustrates how much borrowed money was riding on upside moves heading into the dip. Between the $82,500 technical line, the Fed’s October and December meetings and ongoing Middle East headlines, traders have a clear set of markers for the sessions ahead.