Written by Francisco Rodriguez (all times Eastern Time unless otherwise noted)
Cryptocurrency markets are struggling to find stable footing after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, speaking after the central bank cut interest rates by 25 basis points, suggested that another rate cut in December was not guaranteed.
Bitcoin It fell 2.5% to $110,200 in the past 24 hours, while the broader market as measured by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index was down 1.7%.
Wednesday’s rate cut was expected, but Chairman Powell’s reluctance to ease further led to a pullback in risk assets. The move came as President Donald Trump suggested trade tensions with China were easing.
The disruption led to more than $820 million in cryptocurrency market liquidations in the past 24 hours. Stock indexes are down slightly and gold is struggling to maintain the $4,000 level.
Still, the central bank also said it would end balance sheet outflows by December 1, a move that could provide liquidity to financial markets. For Spanish banker Banquintar, it is “altitude sickness” that is holding back traditional asset prices from rising.
“The next 48 hours should be spent digesting the massive flow of information, particularly corporate earnings and central bank news,” the bank’s analysts said in a note. “The underlying tendency is to react very positively, but the only constraint is ‘altitude sickness’ due to the new altitude.”
The cryptocurrency’s height doesn’t matter, considering that Bitcoin is trading about 13% below its all-time high reached less than a month ago. For QCP Capital, this is the result of modest enthusiasm.
“The October 10th flash crash caused both retailers and institutional investors to become cautious, and order book liquidity has yet to recover,” the company’s analysts said. “Meanwhile, many Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) are trading below 1mNAV, increasing selling pressure.”
These discounts could lead to more DATs using the proceeds from asset sales to buy back their own shares. Ether treasury company ETHZilla made headlines earlier this week for doing just that, selling $40 million in ETH to buy back shares at a discount to NAV.
Meanwhile, Friday’s $13 billion option expiry is adding further pressure to crypto prices. According to Deribit data, market makers are exposed to negative gamma with strike prices between $100,000 and $111,000.
This setting means that hedging activity can increase price volatility over the weekend. Be alert!
what to see
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- cryptography
- October 30: Cronos (CRO) mainnet receives “Smarturn” upgrade.
- October 30, 10:00 a.m.: Core Scientific (CORZ) virtual special meeting for shareholder vote on merger with CoreWeave (CRWV) and related executive compensation.
- October 30: HashKey Chain (HSK) suspends new staking orders to renew staking contracts, promising higher yields and more sustainable APYs.
- macro
- October 30th, 8:00 am: Mexico’s third quarter GDP growth rate (provisional). YoY forecast -0.2%, previous quarter forecast -0.3%.
- October 30, 9:55 a.m.: Michelle W. Bowman, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Oversight, speaks at the Economic Growth and Regulatory Affairs Reduction Act Outreach Conference. Watch it live.
- revenue (estimated based on FactSet data)
- October 30: Coinbase Global (COIN), after-market, $1.14.
- October 30: Reddit (RDDT), after market, 52 cents.
- October 30: Riot Platform (RIOT), -7 cents after market.
- October 30: Strategy (MSTR), -10 cents after market.
token event
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- The Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to transfer 8,500 ETH from its Treasury to the Arbitrum Financial Management Council in order to activate idle funds and generate yield. Voting ends on October 30th.
- unlock
- October 30th: Releases 4.55% of circulating supply worth $15.75 million.
- October 30th: Releases 5.99% of circulating supply worth $13.65 million.
- Activate token
- October 30th: Plasma Published on Bitstamp.
conference
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
token talk
Written by Oliver Knight
- More than $80 billion has been wiped from crypto market capitalization in the past 24 hours as traders “sold the news” following the Fed rate cut and the US-China trade deal.
- Bitcoin and ether the two largest cryptocurrencies are both down 2.5% as they struggle with support levels. XRP and XLM were the worst performing tokens among the largest 20 tokens, losing 3.5% and 3.3% respectively.
- plasma continues to make headlines for all the wrong reasons, dropping 14% in 24 hours and 81% overall since September 28th.
- There was a glimmer of optimism across the altcoin market with US President-backed meme coin TRUMP, which rose 6.8% after reports emerged that token manager Fight Fight Fight was planning to acquire US funding platform Republic.
- TRUMP is up 45% this week, but at $8.40 it remains well below its all-time high of $45.47.
- Bitcoin’s dominance has decreased slightly from 59.3% to 59.0%, suggesting that some altcoins have outperformed Bitcoin during this recent period of selling pressure.
Positioning of derivatives
- Despite the Bitcoin price drop after yesterday’s Fed news, the BTC futures market is showing strength. Open interest (OI) increased slightly to $27.2 billion, confirming minimal liquidations and quick buyer re-entry.
- Importantly, funding rates, which were highly polarized, have normalized and are now trending toward neutral and roughly flat rates across most venues. This indicates underlying market resilience and less volatility and more cautious sentiment compared to previous uncertainties.
- The BTC options market maintains a strong bullish trend, although near-term confidence has eased.
- The term structure of implied volatility (IV) still shows short-term backwardness before moving into long-term contango. The one-week 25 delta skew has fallen to 8% from 10% yesterday, but traders are still paying a hefty premium for short-term call options.
- This decline in confidence is reflected in the 24-hour put-call volume ratio, which remains bullish at 55:44 in favor of calls.
- According to Coinglass data, 24-hour liquidations totaled $821 million, with a 79-21 split between longs and shorts.
- BTC ($368 million), ETH ($188 million), and Others ($52 million) were the leaders in nominal liquidations. Binance’s liquidation heatmap shows $109,700 as the core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price decline.
market movements
- BTC fell 1.41% to $109,991.72 on Wednesday at 4:00 PM ET (24h: -2.6%).
- ETH fell 1.3% to $3,894.22 (24h: -2.48%)
- CoinDesk 20 fell 1.56% to 3,670.84 (24h: -2.49%)
- Ether CESR overall staking rate decreased by 1bps to 2.84%
- BTC funding rate is 0.0024% (2.6488% p.a.) on Binance.
- DXY remains unchanged at 99.18
- Gold futures rose 0.16% to $4,007.30.
- Silver futures unchanged at $47.92
- The Nikkei Stock Average closed almost unchanged at 51,325.61.
- The Hang Seng fell 0.24% to close at 26,282.69.
- The FTSE fell 0.58% to 9,699.33.
- The Euro Stoxx 50 fell 0.48% to 5,678.22.
- DJIA closed 0.16% lower at 47,632.00 on Wednesday.
- The S&P 500 closed unchanged at 6,890.59.
- The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.55% to end at 23,958.47.
- The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed 0.9% lower at 30,144.78.
- The S&P 40 Latin America Index rose 1.11% to end at 3,012.82.
- US 10-year government bond interest rate rose 1bps to 4.068%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures fell 0.22% to 6,907.75.
- E-mini Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.21% to 26,207.25.
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.39% to 47,610.00.
bitcoin statistics
- BTC Dominance: 59.66% (+0.19%)
- Ether/Bitcoin ratio: 0.03538 (-0.29%)
- Hashrate (7-day moving average): 1,108 EH/s
- Hash Price (Spot): $44.75
- Total fees: 2.61 BTC / $292,842
- CME futures open interest: 138,885 BTC
- BTC Gold Price: 26.2oz
- BTC vs. Gold Market Cap: 7.39%
technical analysis
- Bitcoin It is currently above the key weekly support level at $107,000, having successfully rebounded from this zone early on Thursday. It is important to maintain this support.
- If this core support area breaks, the next important level to watch would be a possible retest to $99,000.
- Regarding momentum, the RSI is trending downward, indicating a decline in momentum, but there are currently no clear bullish or bearish divergences that support a change in the main trend.
crypto assets
- Coinbase Global (COIN): Wednesday’s closing price was $348.61 (-1.86%), pre-market was $357.72, +2.61%.
- Circle Internet (CRCL): $131.74 (-3.21%), +3.56% to end at $136.43
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): $36.43 (-2.31%), +3.21% to end at $37.60
- Bullish (BLSH): $52.57 (-2.67%), +2.66% to end at $53.97
- MARA Holdings (MARA): $18.88 (0%), +0.85% to close at $19.04
- Riot Platform (RIOT): $22.17 (+2.85%), -0.81% to end at $21.99.
- Core Scientific (CORZ): $20.77 (+3.38%), -1.25% to end at $20.51
- CleanSpark (CLSK): $18.89 (-1.36%), +8.75% to end at $20.54
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): $58.65 (-1.4%), +1.93% ending at $59.78
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): Closed at $24.67 (-1.36%), +2.55% at $25.30
crypto asset company
- Strategy (MSTR): Ended at $275.36 (-3.26%), +3.31% at $284.47
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): $25.99 (-4.52%), +4.23% to end at $27.09
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): Closed at $13.61 (-0.95%), -1.62% at $13.39
- Upexi (UPXI): $4.54 (-1.94%), +4.41% to end at $4.74
- Light Strategies (LITS): unchanged from pre-market, ending at $2.08 (+7.77%)
ETF flow
Spot BTC ETF
- Daily net flow: -$470.7 million
- Cumulative net flow: $61.83 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.36 million
Spot ETH ETF
- Daily net flow: -$81.4 million
- Cumulative net flow: $14.67 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.81 million
Source: Farside Investors
while you were sleeping
- Cryptocurrency traders liquidate $800 million due to Fed warning, reversal of ‘news sell’ (CoinDesk): Jerome Powell’s cautious tone after quarter-point cut triggers futures liquidation, hurting long traders, Bitcoin tumbled toward $108,000, but rebounded to near $110,000 as positions were trimmed.
- US and China agree to one-year trade cease-fire after Donald Trump-Xi Jinping meeting (Financial Times): The framework would suspend regulations on tech and rare earths, reduce fentanyl-related duties and freeze shipping taxes, with a leader’s visit planned to help negotiators turn it into a broader deal.
- Binance boosts Trump family crypto firm ahead of billionaire founder’s pardon (Wall Street Journal): Binance allegedly boosted its stablecoin ahead of Zhao’s pardon by dispatching engineers to World Liberty Financial to encourage it to pay out $2 billion in investments for $1 each – claims both sides deny.
- This dynamic in the Bitcoin market is in the spotlight as prices soar above $110,000 ahead of $13 billion options expiry (CoinDesk): With $13 billion options expiring on Friday, dealer hedging could force buying on the upside and selling on the dip near key levels, creating a self-reinforcing swing that could overwhelm fundamentals.
- Central banks ramp up gold purchases despite record prices (Bloomberg): Purchases rose 28% to 220 tonnes last quarter. Demand was led by Kazakhstan, but Brazil bought for the first time in more than four years due to geopolitical, inflation and dollar concerns.