By Francisco Rodrigues (All times Eastern Time unless otherwise noted)
bitcoin fell to around $107,000 after spending several days recovering from last week’s sell-off that wiped out billions in leveraged positions. Analysts now interpret the crisis as a market reset rather than a crash.
Glassnode on-chain data suggests that recent volatility has removed excess leverage without damaging long-term market structure. Funding rates have plummeted, futures open interest is down, and realized losses indicate traders are reducing risk rather than exiting positions entirely.
However, for Samer Hasn, senior market analyst at XS.com, bitcoin is “trapped within a bearish structure” as it forms successive highs and lower lows.
“For any significant reversal to occur, the asset must recover and remain solidly above the $111,000 threshold, which is a level that would help rebuild the confidence necessary for trend stabilization,” Hasn wrote in an email. “Until then, market rallies are likely to be viewed as temporary corrective moves within a broader downtrend.”
Still, some crypto market participants see this as a buying window. BitMine, led by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, committed $800 million to its already huge ether treasury, while Blockchain.com has held talks to go public via a SPAC deal in the US.
Similarly, Ripple-backed Evernorth Holdings has signed a SPAC deal to list on Nasdaq as it targets more than $1 billion to create the “largest public XRP treasury.”
Meanwhile, macroeconomic changes are supporting risk assets. Stock prices are rising as trade tensions between the United States and China ease and jitters over credit risks at U.S. regional banks ease. Gold is down more than 2% to $4,265 as capital shifts back to risk.
The technical setup appears to be what is dragging down the broader crypto market, with the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) retracing 3.56% in the last 24 hours and all members trading lower.
“The broader crypto market continues to experience a deep deleveraging phase, with traders taking a step back as volatility increases and confidence in maintaining higher levels fades,” Hasn noted.
“If this pattern persists, it could later serve as a foundation for a more resilient bullish rally once macroeconomic and liquidity conditions improve,” he wrote, echoing colleague Linh Tran. Stay alert!
What to watch
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- October 21, 11:35 a.m. ET: Galaxy Digital (GLXY) to host a Q3 2025 post-earnings AMA on X.
- Macro
- October 21, 8:30: Canada’s September inflation rate. Headline Est. year-on-year 2.3%, est. monthly -0.1%. Core year-on-year (previous 2.6%), month-on-month (previous 0%).
- October 21: The Federal Reserve Board hosts the Payments Innovation Conference in Washington, DC. See live.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- October 21: Galaxy Digital (GLXY), pre-market.
symbolic events
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- GnosisDAO is voting on a proposal to fund ProbeLab with $105,000 to develop detailed performance and security metrics for the Gnosis Chain P2P network. Voting ends on October 21.
- 1inch DAO is voting to remove Unicorn Power’s 5% staking requirement for Fusion resolvers. Voting ends on October 21.
- Unlock
- Token releases
Conferences
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
symbolic talk
By Oliver Knight
- South Korean exchanges Upbit and Bithumb listed a number of lower market cap tokens on Tuesday, sparking a series of explosive moves higher.
- Upbit was added noticeably with won and dollar trading pairs. SynFutures is a decentralized derivatives exchange that hopes to rival HyperLiquid and Aster.
- F rose more than 50% post-listing before giving back some of the gains. Trading volume increased by 669% to over $200 million.
- Meanwhile, Bithumb included ZORA and RECALL. The former rallied more than 10%, while RECALL moved in line with the broader market.
- The surges that followed the quotes bucked the altcoin market trend on Tuesday, with several assets facing double-digit downward moves. The CoinDesk 80 index fell 4.5% in the last 24 hours.
- CAKE and ETHFI lost 10%, while ETH, BNB, and SOL fell 4% to 5% as negative sentiment returned to the market.
- Traders are now analyzing whether the market’s bounce over the weekend formed a lower high, which is indicative of a bearish trend and a possible bear market reversal following new all-time highs less than a month ago.
Derivatives positioning
- The bitcoin futures market is showing a measured recovery, with open interest rising to $26.06 billion as traders gradually re-engage.
- The three-month annualized basis remains stable within the neutral to bullish range of 5% to 6%. Significantly, funding rates have returned to being largely neutral or positive, indicating that the short-term conviction seen previously has dissipated. OKX is currently leading this change with a high positive rate of 7.51%.
- The BTC options market is strongly bullish, supported by the growing expectation of future price swings. The implied volatility term structure is upward sloping, indicating that the market expects volatility to increase over time.
- At the same time, the delta 25 bias is increasing in all periods and now exceeds 11.86%. This high positive bias confirms that traders are paying a large premium for upside exposure (call options), reflecting significant conviction of a sustained rally, despite near-neutral 24-hour puts volume, which is between 49% and 51% in favor of puts.
- Coinglass data shows $320 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 76% to 24% split between long and short positions. BTC ($88 million), ETH ($85 million), and others ($33 million) were the leaders in terms of notional settlements.
- The Binance settlement heatmap indicates $112,300 as the central settlement level to monitor, in case of a price surge.
Market movements
- BTC is down -2.98% since 4 pm ET on Wednesday to $107,816.26 (24 hours: -2.62%)
- ETH is down 3.3% at $3,867.69 to $2,607.45 (24 hours: -3.84%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 3.6% to 3,566.33 (24 hours: -3.46%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate Up 2 Basis Points to 2.84%
- BTC funding rate is 0.0035% (3.7931% annualized) on Binance
- DXY rises 0.27% to 98.85
- Gold futures fall 1.91% to $4,276.00
- Silver futures down 5.43% to $48.60
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 0.27% at 49,316.06
- Hang Seng closed up 0.65% at 26,027.55
- The FTSE rises 0.21% to 9,423.22
- Euro Stoxx 50 unchanged at 5,678.39
- DJIA closed Monday up 1.12% at 46,706.58
- The S&P 500 closed up 1.07% at 6,735.13
- Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.37% at 22,990.54
- S&P/TSX Composite closed up 1.02% at 30,416.44
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.11% at 2,916.62
- The 10-year US Treasury rate fell 1.6 basis points to 3.972%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures down 0.12% at 6,765.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures down 0.11% at 25,276.25
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 0.18% to 46,827.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- BTC dominance: 59.6% (unchanged)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03587 (-0.36%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1133 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $46.49
- Total fees: 2.93 BTC / $324,314
- CME Futures Open Interest: 144,835 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 25.6 oz
- BTC market capitalization against gold: 7.23%
Technical analysis
- After reaching the upper $111,000 yesterday, BTC was rejected from the 20-week exponential moving average (EMA) and is now trading around $107,900.
- For the bulls to maintain momentum, a daily close above the 200-day EMA and a weekly close above $107,400 would help confirm the swing failure pattern established in early September.
- On the downside, the 50-week EMA, currently around $100,200, remains the next major support area on the upper time frame.
Crypto Stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Monday at $343.78 (+2.31%), -1.54% to $338.50 in pre-market
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $130.81 (+3.42%), -0.95% at $129.57
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.65 (+4.95%), +2.3% to $40.56
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $58.76 (+2.96%), -1.77% to $57.72
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $20.73 (+5.93%), -2.03% to $20.31
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): Closed at $22.01 (+9.89%), -1.95% at $21.58
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $18.81 (-1%), +3.14% to $19.40
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $20.4 (+4.48%), -1.08% to $20.18
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $59.77 (+2.64%)
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $26.13 (+5.11%), -0.92% to $25.89
Crypto treasury companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $296.61 (+2.33%), -1.94% to $290.85
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $23.65 (+2.03%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $14.79 (+3.14%), -2.16% to $14.47
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $5.72 (+5.93%), -2.97% to $5.55
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.98 (+5.32%)
ETF Flows
BTC Spot ETF
- Daily net flows: -$40.4 million
- Accumulated net flows: $61.47 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35 million
ETH Spot ETF
- Daily net flows: -$145.7 million
- Accumulated net flows: $14.47 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.78 million
Source: Farside Investors
while you were sleeping
