40 million barrels of crude oil are to be sold, why is Bitcoin ignoring inflation expectations?

According to Woofun AI, the US Department of Energy officially launched the strategic oil reserve release process, which allows the extraction of up to 40 million barrels of crude oil from reserves. The move is aimed at providing a potential source for oil supply later this year, but up to now, no batches of crude oil have actually been distributed. The opening of this application channel marks a new stage of implementation of the 172 million barrels of crude oil release plan previously announced. Of these, 40 million barrels are the upper limit of the total amount to be released in this round, rather than the physical quantity that has already entered the market.

It is worth noting that this large-scale supply forecast did not immediately trigger a sharp shock in the market, and its influence mechanism needs to be deeply deconstructed in combination with time lines and macro-data lag.

The misalignment of the timeline is a core variable that makes it difficult for announcements to instantly influence market expectations. The US Department of Energy issued a tender notice on September 29, setting the application deadline at 11:00 a.m. central time on October 6, while delivery of approved crude oil is scheduled to take place in November and December.

Meanwhile, investors are keeping a close eye on the August Personal Income and Expense Report scheduled to be released by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis at 8:30 a.m. EST on September 30, which includes a key PCE (Personal Consumption Expense) price index. Since the PCE data reflects economic activity in August, it neither covers the September 29 reserve release plan, nor does it reflect crude oil market developments at the end of September.

More importantly, according to the schedule announced by the Ministry of Energy, the newly released crude oil simply could not reach buyers until the report was released. Woofun AI collated data and showed that this time difference between physical delivery and data release made supply-related announcements more affect psychological expectations in the short term rather than instantly changing the fundamentals of supply and demand. If the Ministry of Energy's actions do change people's expectations of oil price trends, the path of changes in Bitcoin prices will be reflected through transmission mechanisms such as inflation expectations, bond yields, and the trend of the Federal Reserve's interest rate, but currently available data does not show that this specific announcement has had a substantial impact on the above market or BTC prices.

Looking at the macro context, trends in inflation and interest rates were basically fixed before the announcement was issued. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis stated in a report released on August 26 that the overall PCE inflation rate in July was 3.7%, and the core inflation rate after excluding food and energy factors was 3.3%. The agency also plans to revise the previous monthly estimates on an annual basis in the future. As inflation remains high, the Federal Reserve raised the policy interest rate range to 3.75%-4% on September 16. Changes in interest rate expectations after the release of the August report will have an impact on assets affected by financing conditions, but this does not mean that the Ministry of Energy's announcement will change the oil price level in August. According to a forecast released by the US Energy Information Administration in September, the price of Brent crude oil may remain around $90 per barrel in the second half of 2026 due to falling inventories and supply restrictions in the Middle East. The forecast was set on September 3, that is, before the reserve release announcement. It only provides a background reference for oil price trends and cannot predict the immediate impact of this new supply on prices.

The current market snapshot further confirms the limitations of the announcement's impact. According to data released by the US Treasury Department on September 29, the yield on two-year Treasury bonds was 4.89%, while the yield on ten-year US Treasury bonds was 5.26%. When looking at the price of Bitcoin on the CryptoSlate website on September 30, the value was around $83,000. These data are for reference only, and it is impossible to prove that the price change was triggered by this announcement. The next key point for the Ministry of Energy is the application deadline of October 6. The final approved supply will determine how much crude oil can enter the market between November and December. At that time, the corrective effect of physical delivery on macroeconomic expectations may actually be revealed.