11 September 2026 PM: Ether regains $2,500 as crypto advances through inflation data

Ether has moved above $2,500 and Solana has regained $100 since this morning’s briefing, giving Friday’s crypto recovery a little more substance. Bitcoin is also higher near $77,850. The move comes as fresh US consumer inflation figures show a faster monthly rise in prices, a reminder that improving crypto quotes and a comfortable economic backdrop are different things.

The market has gained ground since the morning checkpoint, with several large coins participating. At approximately 14:05 BST on 11 September, CoinGecko’s global snapshot puts market capitalisation, the estimated value of circulating cryptocurrencies, near $2.68 trillion, compared with around $2.65 trillion this morning. Bitcoin dominance, its share of that total, remains about 58.5%. These rounded estimates describe the size of the market, not the amount of new cash invested.

Alternative.me’s Fear and Greed Index, a daily measure of Bitcoin sentiment drawing on signals including volatility and momentum, remains at 56, labelled Greed by the provider. That is the same reading reported this morning. The number still sits below yesterday’s 69, so the improved price snapshot should not be described as a fresh rise in the provider’s sentiment measure. It has not refreshed to measure the afternoon move and is not a forecast.

The table describes historical Bitcoin price direction, using CoinGecko returns and nearby chart samples. Changes smaller than 0.5% either way are labelled Neutral; larger gains are Bullish and equivalent losses Bearish. Weekly and monthly refer to rolling seven and 30 day periods. These descriptive labels are not trading signals, and separate snapshots can differ slightly.

Bitcoin is around $77,850, or £57,560, up roughly 1.1% over 24 hours. The latest CoinGecko price snapshot puts it about 0.8% above the rounded $77,250 in this morning’s report on cooling sentiment. The difference is enough to show progress beyond the overnight holding pattern, while remaining a modest move.

The daily percentage has also turned positive from this morning’s negative reading. That change does not mean Bitcoin rose by the full difference between those two percentages during the intervening hours. A rolling daily comparison has a moving starting point. Comparing the actual morning and afternoon prices gives the cleaner account of what happened within today’s session.

For UK readers, the sterling quote is a direct provider price, before fees, rather than a promise about an exchange’s dealing rate. Bitcoin’s dollar and pound daily gains are both close to 1%. The practical conclusion is a measurable intraday improvement, with the weekly decline in the table still showing how incomplete the recovery remains.

Ether is near $2,503, or £1,851, up approximately 3.3% over 24 hours. Ether, the coin used on Ethereum, is about 1.4% above this morning’s rounded $2,469. It has crossed the $2,500 reporting checkpoint identified in the AM briefing, although the latest quote is only just above it.

That narrow margin matters. A single observation above a round number establishes where the price was sampled; it cannot establish that the level will hold. Ether’s larger daily gain than Bitcoin’s is visible in the data, but these quotes do not identify the buyers or demonstrate a fresh institutional catalyst. For now, Ether has extended its earlier resilience into a clearer intraday gain.

Solana is around $101.35, or £74.95, up roughly 2.1% over 24 hours. It has gained about 1.5% from the morning’s $99.84 and returned above $100. That gives the recovery another participant beyond Bitcoin and Ether.

The comparison with Thursday morning’s weakness outside Bitcoin remains useful: Solana was then around $101.70. Today’s afternoon gain has recovered much of that gap without quite closing it. The useful distinction is between reversing part of a recent loss and establishing a new sustained advance. The available snapshots support the first description.

XRP is near $1.36, broadly flat over 24 hours. Its quoted price is slightly above this morning’s rounded $1.35, but the daily change in the latest snapshot is a fractional decline of around 0.06%. Rounding that move to flat is more informative than presenting it as a meaningful sell-off.

XRP therefore qualifies the broader recovery story. All four quoted prices are above the morning checkpoint at the precision reported here, yet their daily performances remain quite different. Improvement has spread across this small sample without becoming uniform. That is a more useful account than saying every major coin is rallying strongly.

US consumer inflation has accelerated month to month, even as its annual headline rate is unchanged. The Bureau of Labor Statistics release published today says the Consumer Price Index, which tracks consumer prices, rose 0.4% in August after 0.1% in July. The annual increase remained 3.4%. Excluding food and energy, monthly inflation was 0.3% and annual inflation 2.4%.

Those figures describe different comparisons, so faster monthly inflation can coexist with an unchanged annual rate. For crypto, inflation matters through its potential influence on interest rates and demand for volatile assets. Today’s release does not by itself establish what policymakers will decide or why individual cryptocurrency prices moved.

Our afternoon snapshot is higher than the morning one, but that interval includes trading both before and after the release. Without a closer event study, calling the whole gain a reaction to inflation would overstate the evidence. The defensible story is that crypto has improved during the session while investors have a new set of inflation figures to assess.

What to watch into Friday evening is whether the gains remain visible at the next checkpoint. Compare Bitcoin with roughly $77,850 and Ether with $2,500. Holding near or above those observations would retain this afternoon’s improvement; slipping below them would show some of it unwinding. These are comparison points, not price targets.

Then check Solana against $100 and whether XRP moves meaningfully beyond its rounded $1.36 quote. That will help distinguish a recovery shared across the sampled coins from one carried mainly by Ether and Bitcoin. Keep the unchanged daily sentiment score separate from those live prices: it cannot settle what the rest of Friday’s session will bring.

Crypto Daily is Cristoniq’s afternoon update on cryptocurrency markets, published every weekday for informational purposes only. Nothing here is financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions.