Fed Rate Cut Bets Raise BTC, TradFi Fumes Over Margin Debt: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)

The crypto market basked in a sea of ​​green like bitcoin BTC$115,413.81 flirted with the $115,000 mark early today, extending its four-day rally from $108,000. The CoinDesk 20 index posted a nice 2% gain in the last 24 hours, while ZEC, PI and ENA dazzled with over 10% gains.

The buzz is all about anticipation of a Fed rate cut this Wednesday and talk of the US-China trade deal, both of which appear to have spurred appetite for risk assets.

The recovery is again characterized by fortune rotation. Short-term holders and big whales are scooping up coins from long-term wallets that have steadily profited since BTC prices held strongly above $100,000 back in June.

Speaking of big moves, the defunct stock exchange’s Mt. Gox delayed the creditor repayment deadline by a year to October 2026. Sharplink Gaming made waves in the ether market, taking in a whopping 19,271 ETH ($78.3 million), according to blockchain sleuth The Data Nerd. The huge purchase shows serious confidence in ETH’s potential.

Meanwhile, privacy coin ZEC got a bullish shoutout from the ever bold Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom Fund. He predicts a meteoric rise to $10,000, a number that makes ETH’s current struggle to break $5,000 look like child’s play.

On the institutional front, CoinShares reported inflows of $921 million into digital asset products last week, a hopeful sign triggered by softer-than-expected US CPI data. Bitcoin led the charge while demand for XRP, ETH and SOL cooled.

Stablecoins stole the limelight with some game-changing headlines. Western Union is reportedly piloting a stablecoin settlement system to reduce reliance on old-fashioned correspondent banks and streamline efficiency via on-chain networks. In Japan, JPYC Inc. launched officially launched its yen-pegged stablecoin, JPYC, and Kyrgyzstan just joined the stablecoin party with its national coin, developed with Binance’s help.

In traditional markets, frenzied demand for leverage from retail investors – evident in rising margin debt and the record number of leveraged ETFs – emerged as a key concern, even as optimism built around easing US-China trade tensions.

As Morningstar noted in an article last week, “adding fuel to the fire are concerns investors are taking on risk beyond what market fundamentals can support.” Pay attention!

What to see

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

• Crypto
  • 27 October at 10: Kadena (KDA) Chief Business Officer Annelise Osborne hosts an AMA on Telegram.
• Macro
  • 27 Oct at 10.30: Dallas Fed production index for Oct. (previously -8.7).
• Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
  • PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market.

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

• Governance votes and calls
  • GnosisDAO votes to replace subgraph-based voting with on-chain and beacon chain data, adds StakeWise (sGNO, osGNO) support and improves voting accuracy while removing dependency on The Graph. Voting ends October 28.
• Unlocks
• The token is launched
  • October 27: Vultisig (VULT) launches its token.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• The crypto market jump ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest rate decision reflected across the entire altcoin sector, with e.g. ZEC$353.91 and ONE$0.5179 with double-digit gains.
• There was also a notable increase in tokens issued in or before 2018 as BCH$559.92 and DASH$51.48 both increased by 8% and 9.5% respectively, while ether ETH$4,150.89 returned to bullish territory with a rise above $4,150.
• The reversal in price action could not be felt in two recently released tokens; plasma XPL$0.3719 and asters ASTER$1.0825 both collapsed further to the downside as slowing demand failed to quell wave after wave of selling pressure.
• Plasma initially rose to as high as $1.67 in the days following its launch, reaching $3.3 billion in daily volume in the process. However, it is now trading at $0.36 and the daily volume is down to $297 million.
• Aster, meanwhile, is trading at $1.07 after losing 43% of its value over the past month. It was initially positioned to be a rival to decentralized derivatives exchange HyperLiquid, but the hype has since withered away following concerns about the legitimacy of trading volume on the platform.
• Bitcoin dominance ticked up slightly to 59.2% on Monday, up from a low of 57.1% six weeks ago, suggesting investors still prefer the more measured gains of BTC compared to more speculative altcoin bets.

Derivative positioning

• BVIV, which measures BTC’s 30-day implied volatility, has fallen to 44% year-on-year, nearly reversing the rise on October 10 in a sign of easing market stress.
• The bias for Deribit-listed BTC put options has weakened across all tenors. However, longer duration risk returns still remain slightly neutral to bearish. The same can be said for ETH, although the bias for ETH puts in the short end is still slightly larger than BTC.
• Last week, traders continued to sell topside (calls) on the CME to collect premium and generate returns on their BTC longs.
• Open interest in futures linked to most cryptocurrencies, excluding XRP, HYPE and HBAR, has increased in the past 24 hours, indicating capital inflows amid the price rally.
• Although bitcoin prices have climbed past their October 21st high, overall open interest in USDT and USD-denominated perpetual futures on major exchanges remains below the levels seen on October 21st. This divergence suggests that leveraged trader participation in the recent BTC rally has been limited.

Market movements

• BTC is up 3.97% as of 16 ET Wednesday at $115,343.39 (24 hours: +2.51%)
• ETH is up 5.8% to $4,170.55 (24h: +4.65%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 4.43% to 3,835.89 (24 hours: +2.34%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 5 bps to 2.82%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0032% (3.504% annualized) on KuCoin

• DXY is down 0.12% to 98.83
• Gold futures are down 1.92% at $4,058.20
• Silver futures are down 1.77% at $47.72
• The Nikkei 225 closed up 2.46% at 50,512.32
• The Hang Seng closed up 1.05% at 26,433.70
• The FTSE is down 0.06% at 9,640.23
• The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.28% to 5,690.65
• The DJIA closed Friday up 1.01% at 47,207.12
• The S&P 500 closed up 0.79% at 6,791.69
• The Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.15% at 23,204.87
• The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.55% at 30,353.07
• The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.35% at 2,922.76
• The US 10-year Treasury yield rose 2.7 bps to 4.024%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures rose 0.87% to 6,886.25
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures rose 1.27% to 25,833.50
• The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index is up 0.58% to 47,669.00

Bitcoin statistics

• BTC dominance: 59.84% (0.33%)
• Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03614 (-0.44%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,125 EH/s
• Hash price (spot): $49.69
• Total fees: 2.03 BTC / $229,952
• CME Futures open interest: 148,460 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 27.4 oz
• BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 7.74%

Technical Analysis

• Ether continues to trade within a well-defined descending channel and below the Ichimoku cloud, indicating downside bias.
• A daily candle close (UTC) above $4,400 would confirm the double breakout, signaling the possibility of a rally to $5,000.

Crypto stocks

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Friday at $354.46 (+9.82%), +2.69% at $364 in premarket
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $142.05 (+9.39%), +2.84% at $146.09
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.82 (+3.16%), +5.12% at $41.86
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $54.22 (+0.65%), +3.43% at $56.08
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.54 (+1.66%), +4.3% at $20.38
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $21.42 (+4.54%), +3.97% at $22.27
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.34 (+7.09%), +1.5% at $19.63
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $19.36 (+9.59%), +4.05% at $20.15
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $59.63 (+10.38%), +5.65% at $63
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.43 (+5.96%), +0.31% at $25.51

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $289.08 (+1.46%), +4.04% at $300.76
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $23.96 (+5.27%), +8.47% at $25.99
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $13.92 (+3.07%), +6.32% at $14.80
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $4.91 (+2.94%), +7.13% at $5.26
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.94 (+3.74%), +6.19% at $2.06

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flow: $90.6 million
• Cumulative net flows: $61.95 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.35M

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$93.6 million
• Cumulative net flows: $14.37 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 6.71 million

Source: Farside Investors

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