coverage endedSep 3, 2026, 9:00 PMLive updates: Bitcoin jumps above $81,000 as rates fall, dollar weakensThe government's employment data (due tomorrow) is usually the main economic report of the month, but this time around it's next week's inflation numbers that will decide Fed policy.Jerome Powell could be deciding vote on rate hike, says longtime Fed watcher“I've been arguing that Fed watching is now vote-tallying,” writes Jim Bianco.With Fed Governor Chris Waller this morning suggesting he’s likely to vote to hold rates, Bianco believes it’s now 6 FOMC members favoring not to hike, 5 to hike 25 basis points, and 1 undecided.That one undecided, says Bianco, is former Fed boss Jerome Powell, who hasn’t spoken publicly since his final press conference in May.There’s no provision in the Federal Reserve Act for a tie vote, so if Powell were to vote to hike — making it 6-6 — presumably the status quo would remain, i.e., no change in policy.The FOMC, however, could agree to continue voting until the tie is broken, noted Bianco.Should the vote end up being lopsided to hold rates in place, said Bianco, that would mean a number of voters have “caved” on previously stated positions that policy needs to be tightened.Welcome to the AGI era? OpenAI releases latest AI model“Everyone has a different definition of AGI,” said OpenAI President Greg Brockman. “It’s a grey, fuzzy thing. But I think when we look back, people will think it’s about this time and about this model.”GPT-6 Astra was trained on more than 100,000 GPUs at OpenAI’s Stargate site in Texas, said the company.Pricing will be $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens.Tesla jumps 7% ahead of Cybercab event, leading stock surgeTesla (TSLA) is set to unveil its highly anticipated Cybercab in Austin at 5:45 pm ET today.The Cybercab is Tesla’s first vehicle built solely for autonomous driving — it has no steering wheel or accelerator/brake pedals.Shares continue their hot run, up 7.15% today and about 20% over the past month. The stock remains lower by 12.7% year-to-date.The Nasdaq is higher by 1.6% and the S&P 500 by 1.15%.Bitcoin tops 50-week moving average at $81,000“All eyes on the 50-week moving average,” tweeted out Galaxy Research minutes ago, as bitcoin (BTC) neared the $81,000 level.Bitcoin hasn’t been above the 50-week since late 2025, when it plunged through that level in its journey from $126,000 to $60,000.The current 50-week moving average stands at $81,041, according to Galaxy. Moments after the Galaxy tweet, bitcoin climbed above that to $81,200, its highest price since mid-May.Bitcoin climbs over $80,000 as markets re-think rate hikesBitcoin (BTC) has extended its U.S. morning gains to more than 4%, rising to $80,400.The key catalyst appears to be a re-jiggering of rate-hike concerns after Fed Governor Chris Waller suggested he’s in favor of holding policy steady this month.The 10-year Treasury yield is down to 4.75% after rising to 4.82% one day ago, and the 2-year yield is down to 4.33% after hitting 4.41% yesterday.Bitcoin jumps above $79,000 as crypto stocks surge and dollar weakensBitcoin has jumped above $79,000, gaining more than 2% over the past 24 hours and lifting crypto-related stocks. Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate bitcoin holder, is up almost 10%, while CoinDesk parent company Bullish (BLSH) has gained 9%. Robinhood (HOOD) is up 13%, Coinbase (COIN) has risen 8% and Circle (CRCL) is up 12%, approaching $100.Meanwhile, semiconductor and memory stocks, which took markets by storm during the first half of the year, are moving lower. The Roundhill Memory ETF is down more than 2%, while the VanEck Semiconductor ETF has fallen 1%.Robinhold surges 12% as its new blockchain rises to top of fee rankingsRobinhood (HOOD) shares rose 12% on Thursday as investors continued to turn their attention to the brokerage's two-month-old blockchain, which is now generating more revenue than any other network in crypto.Robinhood Chain booked $4.3 million in onchain revenue over the past 24 hours and $4.45 million in fees, according to DefiLlama. Solana is next on the list with a total of $3.9 million.The growth is not confined to fees; total value locked (TVL) reached $801 million on Thursday, up 6.88% in 24 hours, while doubling over the past month. The chain is ranked 10th by DeFi TVL, ahead of the likes of Polygon and Avalanche.The largest revenue generators on Robinhood Chain are trading bot GMGN at $2.2 million over the past 24 hours and token launchpad Pons at $1.24 million, suggesting a mix of speculative token trading rather than tokenized equities that Robinhood built the network to host.ISM Services PMI for August tops forecastsThe ISM Services PMI for August came in at 55.4 versus 54.1 in July. Economist forecasts had been for a smaller rise to 54.3.New Orders rose to 60.9 from 57.2. Prices Paid rose to 72.6 from 70.3.The data suggests the service sector of the economy chugged along just fine last month, as did inflation.September Fed rate hike odds tumble below 50% after Waller speechWe’re not sure this is what newish Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh had in mind when he promised to change the culture at the U.S. central bank.Fed rate hike odds have been bouncing around like a memecoin ever since Warsh’s surprisingly hawkish turn at Jackson Hole last week.At the moment, those odds are quickly headed south after Fed Governor Chris Waller one hour ago said he’d be in favor of holding policy steady in two weeks if next week’s CPI report is satisfactory in showing core inflation continued a downward trend.The flip side of that, of course, is that Waller would vote to hike rates if he’s not satisfied with the CPI data.The bottom line appears to be that the monetary policy of the globe’s most important central bank hinges on data that may do a decent job of revealing inflation over longer periods, but on a month-to-month basis, has little more reliability than a random number generator.Per CME FedWatch, September rate hikes odds have fallen to 48% from nearly 70% one day ago.Your move, Chairman Warsh.Fed's Waller says he's a hold on rates if August CPI report is favorable“My take is that underlying inflation is doing better than the core numbers suggest,” said Fed Governor Chris Waller in a speech minutes ago.“I don't see elevated energy prices and tariffs now as a significant source of ongoing inflation pressure,” he continued. “My earlier worry that higher energy prices would bleed into many goods and services prices hasn't come to pass.”Waller said he isn’t expecting a lot of news from tomorrow’s employment report, but is very focused on next week’s August CPI data. Were that to show “continued progress” towards the Fed’s 2% goal, he would be in favor of holding rates steady in September.Bitcoin has added to gains on the dovish comments, rising to $78,400. The two-year Treasury yield has pulled back to 4.33%, now lower by six basis points for the day.Initial jobless claims hold at low levelsU.S. initial jobless claims edged up to 206,000 last week from 203,000 prior. Economist forecasts had been for 205,000.The four-week average rose to 207,250 from 205,500.Nevertheless, claims remain at historically low levels, suggesting little stress in the jobs market.Nvidia in $13 billion deal to buy Hugging Face“Together, we will scale Hugging Face’s platform, strengthen its infrastructure and expand access to AI for developers and institutions worldwide,” wrote Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang, announcing an agreement to buy AI startup Hugging Face for $12.93 billion.“As the opportunity for open models accelerates, Hugging Face can serve the global AI community at unprecedented scale. NVIDIA’s infrastructure, engineering and global reach can help improve platform reliability, safety, model evaluation, inference and deployment capabilities, while preserving the open ecosystem that made Hugging Face foundational.”NVDA shares are flat pre-market.Interest rates drift lower as bond bears take profits ahead of jobs dataU.S. interest rates Thursday are taking a breather from their recent surge higher, the 10-year Treasury yield slipping back to 4.77% after reaching 4.82% at one point yesterday.The two-year yield — which is more sensitive to Fed policy — has slid back to 4.36% after touching 4.41% yesterday.September rate hike odds have retreated to 60% after nearly hitting 70% on Wednesday.The dip lower in rates comes even as the price of oil has surged back to multi-month highs on reported attacks by Iran against U.S. positions in the Middle East.Rather than any fundamental news, the action in the bond market is more likely to do with bears taking some profits ahead of tomorrow’s U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls report for August. The series has been weak of late, and another soft print could trigger a sizable reversal in rates.Bespoke noted the Fed — since it began announcing policy decisions on the day of FOMC meetings in 1994 — has never raised rates within six months of a negative jobs print. Bears, though, might retort that the Fed since 1994 has never had to deal with the sort of sticky inflation currently in place.Oil extends rally as bitcoin and gold shrug off rising energy pricesOil extended its rally, with WTI crude rising another 2% to $93 a barrel, its highest level since July 23. Brent crude climbed to $97 a barrel as renewed geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continued to push energy prices higher.The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield is up slightly on the day, rising 0.17%, and remains just below the multi-year high reached on Wednesday.Gold and bitcoin have so far shrugged off the rise in oil prices, with bitcoin trading above $77,000 and gold holding above $4,400 an ounce.Majors bounce off a weak week as dollar hedging hits a decade lowBitcoin traded just above $77,500 as of Asian morning hours Thursday, up about 1% over 24 hours but down roughly 3% on the week, according to CoinDesk data.BNB led the day's gains at nearly 3%, with XRP and dogecoin each up more than 2%. Tron, solana, zcash and bitcoin all added around 2%, while ether and hyperliquid were flat.Pension funds and insurers in Japan, Canada, Taiwan and three other markets had hedged just 41% of their foreign currency exposure as of June 30, the lowest reading since at least 2015, according to Bloomberg. Hedging means paying to lock in an exchange rate, and these investors have stopped paying for it because the dollar has spent a decade rising when markets got rough.An unhedged holder who decides the dollar is no longer a safe haven has to sell dollars to reduce exposure. Watch whether the yen strengthens off its 160 level, since that is where the unwind would show up first and where crypto has been tracking dollar moves closely all week.12345678910