By Francisco Rodrigues (all times ET unless otherwise noted)
Cryptocurrency prices have fallen over the past 24 hours, haunted by a sell-off in shares after major US tech firms Meta and Microsoft raised their AI investment forecasts, raising concerns about overspending.
Bitcoin was little changed, falling 0.3% to around $110,000 on the 17th anniversary of the release of its white paper, while ether fell 1.3% to around $3,840. The not so sinister move comes as traders assess the changing outlook for interest rates and inflation on both sides of the Atlantic.
The European Central Bank appears to be pausing its rate-cutting cycle, while the Federal Reserve signaled that a rate cut in December is “not a prediction.” At Polymarket, the perceived odds of three US rate cuts this year fell from 86% to 64%.
Crypto exchange-traded fund flows turned negative, with spot bitcoin ETFs seeing $600 million in outflows so far this week and ETH ETFs recording $184.3 million in outflows, according to SoSoValue data.
The ETFs are “showing signs of investor caution,” while the Fear & Greed Index is sliding deeper into “fear” territory, Bitget COO Vugar Usi Zade said in an emailed statement.
“This transition certainly reflects growing macro anxiety, driven by persistent inflation, elevated interest rates and uncertainty about the Fed’s policy path,” Zade wrote. “However, despite the pullback, on-chain activity remains robust and the structural basis of crypto exposure is still intact.”
Zade pointed to longer-term factors like the bitcoin halving in 2028 and evolving global regulation as potential catalysts for longer-term rallies, though “the timing is always uncertain.”
At Coinbase, earnings in the third quarter beat expectations. The exchange had $1.9 billion in revenue and confirmed that its layer-2 network, Base, is now profitable, thanks to higher ETH prices and increasing transaction volume, showing that onchain adoption continues to grow.
Meanwhile, derivatives positioning shows bitcoin traders leaning on income strategies in the $105K-$115K range, according to Wintermute strategist Jasper De Maere.
“Over the next few weeks, markets will likely remain sensitive to macro data releases — including Fed comments, inflationary pressures and labor market signals — as well as any resolution to the ongoing government shutdown,” Bitget’s COO added. “These factors can drive sentiment swings, but they don’t change the long-term trajectory.”
Watch out for ghouls and stay alert!
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- October 31: 17th anniversary of the publication of the Bitcoin white paper by pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.
- Macro
- 31 Oct at 8: Brazil, Sept. Unemployment rate estimated. 5.5%.
- 31 Oct at 8.30: Canada August. GDP MoM Est. 0%.
- Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- No major government voices or calls.
- Unlocks
- October 31: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.24% of its circulating supply, worth $13.07 million.
- October 31: to unlock 1.71% of its circulating supply, worth $13.79 million.
- The token is launched
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
- The altcoin market is heading into the weekend lower than a week ago, with ether losing 2.5% at $3,850.
- Many tokens broke through key levels of support during the period, pulling the average down. The CoinDesk 80 index, a measure of the smallest of the top 100 tokens, fell 3.8%, while the CoinDesk 20 fell 1.3%.
- Double zero (2z), plasma gate token (GT) and all fell between 15% and 21% after extending losses on Friday.
- A few tokens bucked the trend, notably a privacy coin in vogue which is up 5% on Friday to add to a weekly gain of 47%.
- TRUMP memecoin also performed well after it emerged that the company behind the token plans to buy fundraising platform Republic. TRUMP is up 35% over the past seven days.
- The altcoin market outlook now hinges on whether ether can cling to its current level of support at $3,700, an area that produced three rejections in October.
- A break below this level would indicate weakness and a potential macro trend reversal, which is likely to be reflected across the entire altcoin market.
Derivative positioning
- The Bitcoin futures market is in a state of consolidation where there is no clear trend.
- Open interest (OI) fell slightly to $26.16 billion, although it remains elevated.
- Funding rates across most venues are little changed, indicating low overall demand. However, there is isolated bullish demand on specific platforms, such as Deribit, where rates rose to 8% year-on-year.
- The three-month annualized basis, meanwhile, remains subdued in the 4%-5% range, confirming that the basis trade is currently unappealing.
- In options, there is a shift towards a near neutral-to-bearish sentiment, despite maintaining a positive structural bias. The implied volatility (IV) term structure continues to show a short-term decline before moving into long-term contango.
- While one-week 25-delta bias remains positive at 8%, indicating that a premium is still being paid for short-term calls, this belief is challenged by 24-hour put/call volume, which has fallen to 56%-43% in favor of puts, suggesting that short-term downside hedging or speculation is currently dominating trading activity.
- Coinglass data shows $879 million in 24-hour liquidations, with an 86-14 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($303 million), ETH ($193 million) and others ($79 million) led the way in fictitious liquidations. The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $111,000 as a core liquidation level to monitor in the event of a price rally.
Market movements
- BTC is up 2.19% as of 16 ET Thursday at $109,880.54 (24 hours: -0.19%)
- ETH is up 2.4% to $3,846.88 (24h: -1.21%)
- CoinDesk 20 is up 2.36% to 3,604.98 (24h: -1.68%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 9 bps to 2.93%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.004% (4.3526% annualized) on OKX
- DXY is unchanged at 99.53
- Gold futures are unchanged at $4,013.00
- Silver futures are down 0.55% at $48.35
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 2.12% at 52,411.34
- The Hang Seng closed up 1.43% at 25,906.65
- The FTSE is down 0.43% at 9,718.26
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.35% at 5,679.50
- The DJIA closed down 0.23% at 47,522.12 on Thursday
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.99% at 6,822.34
- The Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.57% at 23,581.14
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.11% at 30,178.98
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.99% at 2,999.83
- US 10-year Treasury is up 1 bps at 4.103%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures rose 0.66% to 6,900.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures rose 1.18% to 26,188.75
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index is unchanged at 47,683.00
Bitcoin statistics
- BTC dominance: 59.98% (0.16%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03500 (-0.37%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,138 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $44.62
- Total Fees: 2.86 BTC / $311,977
- CME Futures open interest: 138,115 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 26.1 oz
- BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 7.36%
Technical Analysis
- The ETH-BTC one-week rate appears to be trading within a range.
- There was a rejection of the weekly core resistance back in August (around the time of ether digital asset trading) and since then the RSI has been falling (still not neutral).
- It is likely that ETH-BTC will trade within the current weekly resistance and support, meaning that the risk return on ether over bitcoin is unlikely to be attractive for the time being.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Thursday at $328.51 (-5.77%), +4.83% at $344.38 in premarket
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $122.71 (-6.85%), +3.24% at $126.68
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $34.13 (-6.31%), +2.84% at $35.10
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $49.95 (-4.98%), +1.18% at $50.54
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.76 (-5.93%), +2.65% at $18.23
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $21.09 (-4.87%), +4.74% at $22.09
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $20.74 (-0.14%), +3.38% at $21.44
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $17.69 (-6.35%), +2.77% at $18.18
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $56.71 (-3.31%), +2.50% at $58.13
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $23.73 (-3.81%), -1.56% at $23.36
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $254.57 (-7.55%), +6.77% at $271.80
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $24.61 (-5.29%), +1.89% at $25.08
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $12.77 (-6.17%), +3.29% at $13.19
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $4.26 (-6.17%), +4.46% at $4.45
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.95 (-6.25%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$488.4 million
- Cumulative net flows: $61.34 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35m
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$184.2 million
- Cumulative net flows: $14.48 billion
- Total ETH holding ~6.78 million
Source: Farside Investors
While you were sleeping
- China, Canada leaders meet for first time since 2017 to reset ties (Bloomberg): On the sidelines of APEC in South Korea, Xi Jinping invited Prime Minister Mark Carney to visit China, signaling the basis for renewed engagement after years of strained ties.
- Riot Platforms shares jump ahead of market after posting unexpected profit on record revenue (CoinDesk): Net income was $104.5 million, or 26 cents, against an expected loss of 12 cents, on $180.2 million in revenue. Riot also began a 112 megawatt data center in Corsicana, Texas.
- Protect Bitcoin Exposure with Ether Shorts: Research Firm (CoinDesk): With Bitmine share issuance slowing and options and search data tilting toward ETH, 10x says ether is the weaker leg, making short ETH a hedge for BTC longs.
- ‘HOPIUM’ for Bitcoin Price Bulls (CoinDesk): A ray of hope for BTC is that the 200-week simple moving average is around $54,750, still well below bitcoin’s 2021 peak near $70,000.
- The T3 Financial Crime Unit, backed by Tron, Tether, TRM Labs, has now frozen $300 million in assets (CoinDesk): In its first year, the unit coordinated cross-border seizures with police on five continents, targeting pork butcher rings and money laundering networks, and launched an exchange-led real-time freeze program.
- Trump’s pledge to resume nuclear tests leaves experts puzzled (The Wall Street Journal): Without details from the White House, even the designated US nuclear commander cannot say whether Trump means underground explosions, low-yield experiments or missile tests that risk renewed tests by rivals.
