Key points

  • Bitcoin traded near $83,725 on Kraken at 03:44 UTC, with Coinbase spot at $83,730. That is 3.4% above Tuesday’s low of $80,951.2 and 0.8% above the UTC-day open.
  • Deribit’s volatility index, DVOL, read 38.2, which implies about 2.0% a day. Our 48-hour realised volatility is 34.7%, annualised, so the gap between the two has nearly closed.
  • The level overhead is Monday’s high of $84,250. Below, Tuesday’s $80,951.2 low is the line that would undo the repair.

Tuesday’s dip has been bought back. The harder part is due at 12:30 UTC. For the print and the tape that followed, see our CPI market read.

Bitcoin changed hands near $83,725 on Kraken at 03:44 UTC (05:44 CEST). On Tuesday it fell as low as $80,951.2 while Korean stocks sold off, then closed the UTC day at $83,101.2, a range of 3.8%, as Tuesday’s market read laid out. Ether was near $2,516, Solana near $107.94 and XRP near $1.375.

The Asian session helped. The Kospi was up 1.7% at 6,135 in Wednesday trading after losing 5.5% on Tuesday, and the Nikkei was up 0.6%. S&P 500 futures traded near 7,870 after a flat cash close of 7,805.45.

Options have stopped looking expensive

On Sunday the story was a quiet tape and expensive options, as Sunday’s First Print put it. Tuesday changed the arithmetic.

Put simply, realised volatility is how far the price has actually swung, annualised, and implied volatility is what options buyers pay for protection over the next 30 days. DVOL, Deribit’s gauge of the second, is at 38.2, a one-standard-deviation move of about 2.0% a day (DVOL divided by the square root of 365). Our calculation from Kraken hourly closes puts the last 48 hours at 34.7%, up from 19% at the weekend. Implied now sits barely above realised.

That matters on a data day. If the inflation print moves bitcoin more than 2%, options sellers have been underpaid. If it moves less, they have earned their premium. Nobody is leaning hard on direction: funding on Deribit’s perpetual was close to zero per eight hours, and OKX’s last settled BTC swap rate was −0.0031%, so shorts are paying longs a sliver. Open interest on Deribit’s perpetual was about $846 million.

The print and the flows

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes September CPI at 08:30 ET (12:30 UTC, 14:30 CEST). The median of 14 forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, as relayed by investingLive, is a 0.6% monthly rise in headline prices and an annual rate of 3.6%, up from 3.4%, with energy doing the lifting. Core is seen up about 0.2% on the month. The split is on the annual core rate: about half of the forecasters see 2.4%, the rest 2.5%.

Treat the headline as known and the core as the coin flip. Energy is already in the price: Brent was near $106.50 at 03:30 UTC and the US 10-year yield closed Tuesday at 5.217%. A core reading at the soft end of the 0.16% to 0.24% range of forecasts would give the Federal Reserve room to wait at its 27 to 28 Oct meeting. A hot one would put yields back in charge. For why the Fed watches another gauge more closely, see why PCE can matter more than CPI.

ETF money turned on Tuesday. US spot bitcoin funds took in $109.8 million, according to Farside, led by $103.1 million into Fidelity’s FBTC, but BlackRock’s IBIT had not reported at 03:41 UTC. Monday was a $65.4 million outflow, all from IBIT.

The level to watch is $84,250. A sustained break above Monday’s high would leave Tuesday’s dip as a shakeout; a slide back under $80,951.2 would turn it into a lower low.

Respect the number, not the narrative.

Chart to watch

  • Kraken’s daily candles since Monday: a $84,250 high on Monday, a $80,951.2 low on Tuesday and a close of $83,101.2. Wednesday’s range so far is $83,099.4 to $83,875.1.
  • Overhead: $84,053.1, Tuesday’s high, then $84,250.
  • Below: $80,951.2, then $80,328.6, the 8 Oct low.

On the calendar (UTC / CEST)

  • Wed 14 Oct, 12:30 UTC (14:30 CEST): US CPI for September. The Fed’s Beige Book is due later in the day.
  • Thu 15 Oct, 12:30 UTC (14:30 CEST): US producer prices and retail sales for September.
  • Fri 16 Oct, 08:00 UTC (10:00 CEST): Deribit’s weekly bitcoin options expire. As of Sunday, 15,047 BTC of open interest was set to expire, with puts outnumbering calls 1.49 to one, per our week-ahead calendar.
  • Tue 27 to Wed 28 Oct: Federal Reserve policy meeting.

As of 03:44 UTC (05:44 CEST), bitcoin was trading near $83,725 on Kraken and ether near $2,516. This is market commentary, not financial advice.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.