Key points
- Bitcoin fell from about $82,650 to $80,980 in the 15:00 UTC hour on Kraken, touched $80,328.6 in the 17:00 UTC hour and recovered to about $81,700.
- The level that matters is the 50-day simple moving average near $80,280, which Thursday’s low tested and did not close below.
- A daily close below $79,900 would invalidate the summer uptrend structure and bring the 30-day low of $74,891.5 back into view.
Bitcoin went looking for $80,000. It found buyers about $330 above it.
The bitcoin price opened Thursday at $83,276 on Kraken and slipped in steps through the Asian and European sessions. The decisive leg came in the 15:00 UTC hour, a 2% drop to $80,978. The low of $80,328.6 followed two hours later. Ether fell 4.3% to about $2,463 after a low of $2,405, while Solana lost 6.2% and Cardano 9.2%.
Related: Coin Levels 8 Oct
Bitcoin price today: oil spikes, then blinks
Oil was the loudest tape. Brent crude rose to about $105.9 a barrel, then eased to roughly $103.6 by 20:15 UTC after President Donald Trump wrote that “we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections”, CNBC reported. The US naval blockade stays in place. The 10-year Treasury yield eased from about 5.33% to 5.23%, according to Yahoo Finance data.
Related: How oil and yields move bitcoin
The sequence matters. Bitcoin’s sharpest drop came before the post, at about 16:25 UTC, and its low came after it. Crypto did not get the relief bounce that oil did, at least not on the first try.
Equities closed soft. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% to 7,765 and the Nasdaq 1.3%. Coinbase shares dropped 3.6% to $172.00, Robinhood 2.3% to $107.01, BitMine 2.5% to $24.04 and Strategy 1.2% to $151.47.
The calendar adds pressure. Saturday marks a year since the 10 Oct 2025 crash, and CoinDesk noted that bitcoin is trading at a one-month low into that anniversary.
In plain English, the 50-day simple moving average is the average closing price of the last 50 days, and traders treat it as the dividing line between a pullback and a broken trend.
Derivatives: leverage creeps back
Funding on Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual, the periodic fee between longs and shorts, rose from about 0.001% per eight hours after midnight UTC to roughly 0.009% by 19:00 UTC. That is still low, but it rose as the price fell. Some traders were buying the dip with leverage.
Ether was more cautious. ETH perpetual funding hovered around zero and turned slightly negative around midday.
Options repriced, but only modestly. Deribit’s DVOL, a 30-day implied volatility index, rose from about 36.7 to a peak of 39.4 for bitcoin and eased to 37.9 by 20:00 UTC. Ether’s DVOL climbed from about 47.7 to a 52.1 peak. A verified CoinGlass liquidation total for Thursday was not available at publication.
Spot ETF data lags. US spot bitcoin ETFs lost $484.9 million on Wednesday, the most since 25 Jun, according to Farside data; Thursday’s prints were not yet out. Separately, US government wallets moved 12,267 BTC to new addresses on Thursday, with no exchange deposit recorded.
Related: ETF Desk on Wednesday’s outflows
Related: US government’s 12,267 BTC move
The levels
The level to watch is the 50-day average near $80,280. A sustained break below $79,900 would invalidate the uptrend from the summer lows and bring $77,000 and then the 30-day low of $74,891.5 back into view. Reclaiming $83,500, the 20-day EMA, would undo Thursday’s damage.
Respect the average.
The other view
The flow data argues against panic. JPMorgan analysts, in a note reported by The Block, estimate about $50 billion of crypto inflows this year and see “positive flow momentum into Q4”. They say ETF flows have been positive since August, CME bitcoin futures positioning is above its previous peak, and trend-following funds have started rebuilding longs. On that reading, Thursday was a test of support inside a market that is still taking in money.
Related: JPMorgan’s $50bn inflow estimate
As of 20:00 UTC, BTC is trading near $81,700.
Not financial advice.
Produced by the Crypto Watch Desk newsroom using AI tools. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.