Hello, Asia. Here’s what’s making news on the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of the top news stories during U.S. business hours and insight into market movements and analysis. For a detailed look at US markets, check out CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
Bitcoin’s fall in the 90s forced prediction markets to undergo one of the quickest sentiment resets of the year, with traders abruptly abandoning bullish scenarios and reassessing the pullback as a deeper structural break rather than a routine correction.
The move marks a rare moment where retail and institutional bettors were caught off guard at the same time. Bitcoin’s market price odds at year’s end have swung sharply toward another decline, reflecting a market that expected mild weakness rather than a multi-week selloff that erased most of bitcoin’s year-to-date gains.
In a recent note, QCP warned that even professional desks were not positioned for a weekly close below 100,000 or the loss of the 50-week moving average, calling the move a cycle-level inflection that traders are still digesting.
Glassnode’s on-chain data shows similar stress, with oversold dynamics, heavy realized losses, and moderate ETF outflows, indicating late-stage capitulation pressures as bitcoin trades in an area where prior lows have formed.
But CryptoQuant argues in a recent note that the market is still missing the final ingredient to hit a true bottom, noting that realized losses remain virtually non-existent and long-term holders continue to sell in force.
For now, the market is somewhere between early signs of exhaustion and the lack of capitulation that typically defines a sustainable bottom, creating a period of volatility as traders decide which signal wins.
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin fell to around 92,500 during the US session, down about 2% on the day and 27% from last month’s record high.
ETFs: Ether held just above 3,000, falling about 2% over the past 24 hours and extending its weekly decline to about 15%.
Gold: Gold slipped to around $4,069 an ounce, down 0.3%, as diminishing expectations for a December Fed rate cut and a firmer dollar weighed on the metal after briefly pushing it above $4,100 earlier.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets fell Tuesday after a tech slide on Wall Street, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 down 0.92% as investors awaited Nvidia’s earnings and September jobs report.
Elsewhere in crypto
- DappRadar shuts down, citing ‘financially unsustainable’ market (CoinDesk)
- Ethereum is the opposite of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, says Vitalik Buterin (Decrypt)
- Man Behind Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos Hacks Twitter to Repay Over $5 Million in Stolen Bitcoin (The Block)
