Key points
- Bitcoin rose to $86,973.6 just after midnight UTC on Kraken, then slipped to a low of $84,965.7 before steadying near $85,650.
- The level that matters is $84,700, Sunday’s opening area; holding it keeps the weekend breakout attempt alive.
- A sustained move below $83,000 would invalidate the range and put September’s lower levels back in view.
Bitcoin had another go at $87,000. The bond market had other plans.
The largest cryptocurrency opened Monday at $86,506.6 on Kraken, after a Sunday close of $86,510.4. It set a session high of $86,973.6 in the first Asian hour, then bled lower through the European and US mornings. The low came at $84,965.7, a 2.3% slide from the top, before buyers stepped back in.
Ether tracked the same arc with less drama. It peaked at $2,737.16, dipped to $2,678.88 and traded near $2,710 at 19:00 UTC, down about 0.6% on the day.
Bitcoin price today: the macro push
The pressure came from rates. The US 10-year Treasury yield climbed to about 5.35% in the New York afternoon, according to Yahoo Finance data, near the top of its range since late September. The dollar index rose as high as 102.5.
Oil cut the other way. Brent crude opened near $102 and drifted to about $100 by the US afternoon, which took some of the inflation edge off the rates move.
Bitcoin has spent the past two weeks inside a band of roughly $83,000 to $87,000. Monday’s high touched the top of it and failed, the third test of that ceiling since 2 Oct, when the intraday high reached $87,229.
Put simply, the market is still range-trading, and every test of $87,000 has met sellers who appear more patient than the buyers below.
Flows gave the bulls some cover. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $189.9 million on Friday, 2 Oct, led by $158.2 million into BlackRock’s IBIT, according to Farside data. Monday’s prints were not yet complete at publication. Strategy also disclosed in a Form 8-K on Monday that it bought 334 BTC between 1 and 4 Oct.
Related: Strategy’s 334 BTC buy
Derivatives stayed asleep
Futures traders did not chase the move. Funding on Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual, the periodic fee that long and short traders pay each other to keep the contract near spot, averaged about 0.006% per eight hours on Monday. That is close to flat. Leverage was not driving the weekend rally, and it was not unwinding on Monday either.
Options were just as calm. Deribit’s DVOL, a 30-day implied volatility index built from bitcoin options prices, held between 36 and 36.5 all day. Put simply, the options market is pricing moves of roughly 1.9% a day, about what Monday delivered.
Related: The ETF Desk on Friday’s flows
The levels
The level to watch is $84,700, roughly where Sunday’s rally began. A sustained break below $83,000 would invalidate the range and bring $80,000–$81,000 back into view. A daily close above $87,300 would be the first real escape from the band since mid-September.
Stay patient.
The other view
The options market reads Monday differently from the chart. A DVOL in the mid-30s is low for bitcoin, and low implied volatility tends to sit alongside range-bound trading rather than ahead of a breakout. On that reading, Monday’s dip was noise inside a quiet regime, and the more important signal is that nobody in options is paying up for protection on either side.
Related: How bond yields move bitcoin
As of 19:00 UTC, BTC is trading near $85,650.
Not financial advice.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.