By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
The crypto market is swimming in a sea of green like bitcoin flirted with the $115,000 mark earlier today, extending its four-day rise from $108,000. The CoinDesk 20 Index saw a sharp rise of 2% in the past 24 hours, while ZEC, PI and ENA dazzled with gains of over 10%.
The buzz revolves around anticipation of a Fed rate cut this Wednesday and talk of the US-China trade deal, both of which appear to have boosted appetite for risky assets.
The recovery is once again marked by the rotation of wealth. Short-term holders and large whales are scooping up coins in long-term wallets that have been steadily cashing out since BTC prices held above $100,000 in June.
Speaking of big moves, the defunct Mt. Gox exchange has delayed its creditor repayment deadline by a year, to October 2026. Sharplink Gaming has been making waves in the ether market, fetching a whopping 19,271 ETH ($78.3 million), according to blockchain sleuth The Data Nerd. This mammoth purchase shows serious confidence in the potential of ETH.
Meanwhile, privacy coin ZEC received a bullish shout from the ever-bold Arthur Hayes, CIO of the Maelstrom Fund. He predicts a meteoric rise to $10,000, a number that makes ETH’s current struggle to surpass $5,000 look like child’s play.
On the institutional front, CoinShares reported inflows of $921 million into digital asset products last week, a sign of hope sparked by weaker-than-expected U.S. CPI data. Bitcoin led the charge, while demand for XRP, ETH, and SOL cooled.
Stablecoins stole the show with game-changing headlines. Western Union is reportedly testing a stable settlement system to reduce reliance on old-school correspondent banks and streamline efficiency via blockchain networks. In Japan, JPYC Inc. officially launched its yen-pegged stablecoin, JPYC, and Kyrgyzstan just joined the stablecoin party with its national coin, designed with help from Binance.
In traditional markets, frenzied demand for leverage from retail investors – evident in rising margin debt and record numbers of leveraged ETFs – has emerged as a major concern, even as optimism has grown around easing trade tensions between the United States and China.
As Morningstar noted in an article last week, “What’s adding fuel to the fire is the fear that investors are taking risks beyond what market fundamentals can support.” Stay vigilant!
What to watch
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Cryptocurrency
- October 27, 10 a.m.: Annelise Osborne, Chief Commercial Officer of Kadena (KDA), hosts an AMA on Telegram.
- Macro
- October 27, 10:30 a.m.: Dallas Fed manufacturing index in October (previous -8.7).
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market.
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Votes and calls on governance
- GnosisDAO votes to replace subgraph-based voting with on-chain and tagchain data, adding support for StakeWise (sGNO, osGNO) and improving voting accuracy while removing reliance on The Graph. Voting closes on October 28.
- Unlocks
- Token Launches
- October 27: Vultisig (VULT) launches its token.
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Symbolic discussion
By Olivier Knight
- The crypto market rebounds ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve rate decision and is reflected across the altcoin sector, including And posting double-digit gains.
- There has also been a notable increase in the number of tokens issued in 2018 or earlier, as And both rose 8% and 9.5% respectively, while ether returned to bullish territory with a rise beyond $4,150.
- The reversal in price action was not felt in two newly released tokens; plasma and aster both collapsed further to the downside as falling demand was unable to quell successive waves of selling pressure.
- Plasma initially reached $1.67 in the days following its launch, generating daily volume of $3.3 billion. However, it is now trading at $0.36, with daily volume dropping 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 died down after concerns over the legitimacy of trading volume on the platform.
- Bitcoin’s dominance increased slightly to 59.2% on Monday, up from a low of 57.1% six weeks ago, suggesting investors still prefer BTC’s more measured gains over more speculative bets on altcoins.
Positioning of derivative products
- BVIV, which measures BTC’s 30-day implied volatility, has fallen to an annualized rate of 44%, nearly reversing the October 10 peak, a sign of waning market tensions.
- The bias towards BTC puts listed on Deribit has weakened across all durations. However, longer duration risk reversals remain slightly neutral to bearish. The same can be said for ETH, although in the short term the bias for puts on ETH is still slightly higher than that for BTC.
- Last week, traders continued to sell topsides (calls) on the CME to collect premiums and generate yield on their long BTC.
- Open interest in futures contracts linked to most cryptocurrencies, excluding XRP, HYPE and HBAR, has increased over the past 24 hours, indicating capital inflows amid the price rally.
- Although Bitcoin prices have surpassed their October 21 high, total open interest in USDT and USD-denominated perpetual futures on major exchanges remains below the levels seen on October 21. This divergence suggests that leveraged traders’ participation in the recent BTC rally has been limited.
Market movements
- BTC is up 3.97% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $115,343.39 (24 hours: +2.51%)
- ETH is up 5.8% at $4,170.55 (24 hours: +4.65%)
- CoinDesk 20 is up 4.43% at 3,835.89 (24 hours: +2.34%)
- Ether CESR composite staking rate is down 5 basis points to 2.82%
- BTC funding rate is 0.0032% (3.504% annualized) on KuCoin
- The DXY is down 0.12% at 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
- Hang Seng closed up 1.05% at 26,433.70
- The FTSE is down 0.06% at 9,640.23
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.28% at 5,690.65
- 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 Index closed up 0.55% at 30,353.07
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed down 0.35% at 2,922.76
- The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is up 2.7 basis points at 4.024%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.87% at 6,886.25
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.27% at 25,833.50
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 0.58% at 47,669.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- BTC dominance: 59.84% (0.33%)
- Ether/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 valued in gold: 27.4 ounces
- BTC vs. gold market capitalization: 7.74%
Technical analysis
- Ether continues to trade within a well-defined descending channel and below the Ichimoku Cloud, indicating a downward 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% to $364 in pre-market
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $142.05 (+9.39%), +2.84% to $146.09
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.82 (+3.16%), +5.12% at $41.86
- Bull (BLSH): closed at $54.22 (+0.65%), +3.43% at $56.08
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.54 (+1.66%), +4.3% to $20.38
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): close at $21.42 (+4.54%), +3.97% to $22.27
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.34 (+7.09%), +1.5% to $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% to $63
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.43 (+5.96%), +0.31% to $25.51
Crypto Cash 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% to $25.99
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $13.92 (+3.07%), +6.32% to $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 Feed
Spot BTC ETF
- Daily net flow: $90.6 million
- Cumulative net flows: $61.95 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35 million
ETH Spot ETF
- 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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