By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
It’s another risk-off session across the crypto markets. Bitcoin fell 3.5% over the past 24 hours to approach October lows around $103,600. Any additional and the largest cryptocurrency would be at its lowest price since June.
The CoinDesk 20 index is down 5%, with major altcoins such as ether and solana also hit their lowest since August.
The usual culprits are taking the blame: hawkish comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell; a strengthening dollar index; sustained sales from long wallets.
“Liquidity is expanding globally, but capital is not reaching crypto,” said market maker Wintermute. “ETF inflows have stalled, DAT activity has dried up, and only stablecoins are still growing.”
But there is another angle, and it is worth considering. That bearish tone could be linked to the flash crash on October 17, when several arbitrage bets lost money on their futures legs due to automatic deleveraging. These companies could quietly liquidate their remaining long spot positions, adding downward pressure on prices.
Speaking of market giddiness, Stream Finance’s stablecoin, xUSD, collapsed 80% to 30 cents, with the DeFi firm reporting a $93 million loss stemming from an external fund manager. Stream Finance said it hired a top law firm, Perkins Coie LLP, to investigate the matter, and the crypto community is on edge, assessing the broader market fallout.
Some observers have noted that lenders of xUSD are now earning over 500% daily interest. It is a clear indication that the protocol’s coffers may be in serious trouble.
Amidst all this gloom, some privacy coins such as Zcash, Decred and DASH are surging, adding as much as 200% in just 24 hours. Traders seem to be seeking refuge wherever they can.
In traditional markets, the recent surge in credit default swaps tied to Oracle is being taken to represent investor anxiety over the company’s booming AI-related spending. The dollar index has risen to 100 for the first time in months, complicating things for bitcoin bulls. Gold, meanwhile, continues to hold steady around $4,000 per ounce. ounces. Pay attention!
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- Nov 4: IoTeX (IOTX) deploys Core v2.3.0 mainnet upgrade that introduces slashing for underperforming delegates and BLS PublicKey Registration for scalable signature aggregation to improve network reliability and scalability.
- Nov 4 at 12 UTC: THORChain (RUNE) activates mainnet upgrade v3.12.0 introducing improved swaps, improved performance and Solana client support.
- Nov 4 at 10: Sam Bankman-Fried will appear before the Second Court of Appeal to argue for a new trial challenging the fairness of his conviction and 25-year prison sentence for fraud,
- Macro
- November 4, 6:35 a.m.: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman delivers a speech on “Bank Supervision and Monetary Policy.” Watch live.
- Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
- November 4: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, -$0.12.
- November 4: Mara Holdings (MARA), after market, $0.02.
- November 4: Sequans Communications (SQNS), pre-market, N/A.
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- Balancer DAO votes on a major proposal to transfer on-chain operations to a new legal entity (BIP-882), along with proposals to improve emergency security (BIP-883), activate the BAL token on the Plasma chain (BIP-884), update treasury permissions (BIP-885), and add a new arbitrum meter (BIP-886). Voting on all of these ends November 4th.
- Unlocks
- 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 suffered a torrid Asia session with several tokens falling more than 15%, resulting in a $1.37 billion liquidation wave, according to CoinGlass.
- HyperLiquid Rival Aster led the decline, falling 18% to $0.88. Interestingly, that’s below the price paid by Binance founder CZ, who announced a $1.8 million purchase at $0.90 over the weekend.
- “Every time I buy coins I’m stuck in a losing position, 100% record,” CZ wrote on X on Tuesday.
- Numerous tokens included now finds itself back at critical levels of support that led to a bounce two weeks ago, although it’s worth noting that the likes of solana and GDP has fallen to fresh lows.
- One sector that has outperformed the broader market has been privacy coins, with and both still in the green for the month.
- On Tuesday, there were also extraordinary rallies and two tokens considered by some to be “dino coins” as they were launched in 2017 and 2014 respectively. Both tokens have privacy features and appear to run on XMR and ZEC.
- DCR is up 146% while DASH is up 65% on significant volume, showing that traders may be rotating away from the weaker broader market.
Derivative positioning
- Volmex’s Bitcoin Volatility Index, BVIV, which represents the 30-day implied or expected price turbulence, is rising after the golden cross of its 50- and 200-day moving averages.
- BTC’s spot price has developed a negative correlation with volatility over the past year, meaning that further increases in BVIV could be marked by price weakness.
- Positioning in ZEC remains high, with open interest (OI) near lifetime highs of around 1.59 million ZEC. However, funding rates have turned bearish, a sign that some traders are shorting futures, possibly against long spot positions.
- On the CME, futures linked to BTC and ETH continue to diverge, with activity mainly concentrated in ether futures, where OI remains close to record highs.
- On Deribit, BTC options show a bias for puts across all timeframes, a sign of persistent downside. Ether options show bullishness after February 2026 expiration.
- OTC flows across Paradigm contained demand for November 7 expiration ether set at the $3,500 strike.
Market movements
- BTC is down 2.8% as of 16 ET Monday at $103,900.89 (24 hours: -2.72%)
- ETH is down 2.98% to $3,494.29 (24 hours: -5.87%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 2.54% to 3,285.49 (24h: -5.03%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.93%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0063% (6.893% annualized) on Bybit
- DXY is up 0.09% to 99.96
- Gold futures are down 0.26% at $4,003.40
- Silver futures are down 1.05% at $47.54
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 1.74% at 51,497.20
- The Hang Seng closed down 0.79% to 25,952.40
- The FTSE is down 1.02% to 9,602.50
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.44% to 5,597.60
- The DJIA closed down 0.48% at 47,336.68 on Monday
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.17% at 6,851.97
- The Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.46% at 23,834.72
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed little changed at 30,275.06
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.55% at 3,020.24
- The US 10-year Treasury yield is down 1.8 bps to 4.089%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.06% at 6,809.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.37% at 25,744.50
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.77% at 47,107.00
Bitcoin statistics
- BTC Dominance: 60.62% (-0.20%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03353 (-0.83%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,114 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $42.13
- Total Fees: 3.12 BTC / $335,825
- CME Futures open interest: 132,180 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 24.6 oz
- BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 6.95%
Technical Analysis
- Volmex’s bitcoin volatility index, BVIV, which measures expected price volatility over 30 days, has produced a golden crossover, a bullish intersection of the 50- and 200-day simple moving averages.
- The pattern indicates more gains for the index, implying increased price volatility in the bitcoin market.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Monday at $330.42 (-3.89%), -3.69% to $318.23 in premarket
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $117.86 (-7.18%), -2.38% at $115.05
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $34.88 (-0.37%), -5.71% at $32.89
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $50.26 (-0.61%), -1.61% at $49.45
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.81 (-2.52%), -3.48% at $17.19
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $20.72 (+4.75%), -4.58% at $19.77
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $22.9 (+6.31%), -4.45% at $21.88
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $17.42 (-2.13%), -4.82% at $16.58
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $61.46 (+7.09%), -4.15% at $58.91
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.19 (+2.86%), -0.12% at $25.16
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $264.67 (-1.8%), -3.65% at $255.01
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $25.41 (-3.97%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $13.09 (-5.42%), -4.51% at $12.50
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $3.84 (-14.09%), -5.21% at $3.64
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.92 (-8.13%), -2.08% at $1.88
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$186.5 million
- Cumulative net flows: $60.97 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35m
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$135.7 million
- Cumulative net flows: $14.25 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.71 million
Source: Farside Investors
While you were sleeping
- Bitcoin, Ether and Solana Traders Liquidated Over $1B as price dump 5%-10% (CoinDesk): A drop from $112,000 to below $106,000 triggered a leveraged futures flush led by long positions, capped by a $33.95M.
- Bitcoin’s Last Support Before $100K Breaks As ‘Mag 7’ Warps, Oracle CDS Rises (CoinDesk): An Asia-session slide below $106,000, fresh lows in ETH and SOL and a bearish moving average highlight weakening risk appetite amid falling interest-rate cut odds and firmer dollar odds.
- Stream Finance Faces $93 Million Loss, Launches Legal Investigation (CoinDesk): An outside fund manager overseeing Stream funds revealed a roughly $93 million loss in the firm’s assets, prompting a suspension of deposits and withdrawals as an investigation unfolds.
- Cryptos’ decentralized finance sector at risk of attack, warns Chainalysis (Financial Times): According to the firm, hacks totaled $2.2 billion in the first half of 2025, and CEO Jonathan Levin says this underscores how fast-growing DeFi platforms often prioritize expansion over security.
