Key points
- Bitcoin climbed from $80,567.9 on Kraken at about 20:15 UTC on Sunday to $82,700.0 at 02:45 UTC on Monday, a 2.6% bounce, and was near $82,410 at 03:45 UTC. Coinbase showed $82,403.
- China’s statistics bureau reported third-quarter growth of 4.5% from a year earlier, up from 4.3% in the second quarter, with September retail sales up 1.1%.
- The line that would turn the structure is still $84,250, the 12 Oct high, about 2.2% above the market. A sustained break back below Sunday’s $80,568 low would undo the bounce.
The weekend ended at the lows. Monday started somewhere else.
Bitcoin traded near $82,410 on Kraken at 03:45 UTC, up 2.3% from Sunday evening’s low of $80,567.9 and 0.5% above the UTC-day open. Ether did better, near $2,420, about 4% above its 24-hour low of $2,326.
Solana was near $105.06 and XRP near $1.308. As our week-ahead calendar showed, bitcoin had just dipped below Saturday’s low when Sunday’s US session ended.
The bounce came with the futures, not the data
The order matters. US index futures reopened at 22:00 UTC on Sunday. Nasdaq 100 futures were 0.4% above Friday’s settle within 15 minutes and kept climbing, reaching 1.1% by 02:00 UTC and 1.3% by 03:40 UTC, by Yahoo Finance data.
Bitcoin moved with them. It was at $81,121 when futures reopened and $82,002 by midnight UTC.
By 02:00 UTC, when China’s figures came out, it was already at $82,346. That is about $1,780 of the $2,130 bounce done before Beijing said a word.
The data then added a little. China’s economy expanded 4.5% from a year earlier in July to September and 1.2% from the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
September industrial output rose 5.5% and retail sales 1.1%, 0.7 percentage point faster than in August. Fixed-asset investment fell 7.2% in the first nine months. Bitcoin printed its high, $82,700.0, in the 02:45 UTC bar, then eased.
Asian stocks needed longer. South Korea’s Kospi opened about 3.2% below Friday’s close and was up 0.7% by 03:28 UTC.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell nearly 2% in its first 15 minutes and was still down 0.8% at 03:33 UTC. The Shanghai Composite was up 0.2%.
Oil gave some of Friday back: Brent crude futures were near $107.75 a barrel, about 2% below Friday’s close. Gold was near $4,200 and the dollar index near 101.8.
The US 10-year yield closed Friday at 5.10%, and how bond yields move bitcoin explains why that level weighs on an asset that pays no yield.
Derivatives did not chase it
Funding barely moved. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual showed 0.0037% per eight hours and OKX 0.0043% for the current period, after 0.0069% last settled.
Put simply, funding is the fee holders of perpetual futures pay each other to keep the contract near spot; small and positive means longs are paying a little, not crowding in.
Deribit perpetual open interest was about $853 million, against about $841 million early on Saturday. The DVOL volatility index read 38.85, which implies a one-standard-deviation move of about 2% a day. Bitcoin’s share of total crypto market value was 60.1% on CoinGecko.
The level to watch is $82,700, the overnight high. Acceptance above it opens the way to the $84,250 line; holding above Sunday’s $82,177 high keeps the bounce intact in the meantime. A sustained break below $80,568 would invalidate the bounce and put the 15 Oct low of $79,709 back in play, with Friday’s $78,000 put stack below that.
A different reading
The bounce is real, but it is a macro bounce. If European cash equities and the US open do not confirm what futures priced overnight, bitcoin has little of its own to hold the gain. No new purchase by Strategy had been filed with the SEC as of 03:50 UTC, despite Michael Saylor’s Sunday post, and Monday’s spot ETF flows will not be known until after the US close.
Trade the levels, not the headlines.
Chart to watch
- The lead chart: bitcoin’s climb tracked Nasdaq 100 futures from the 22:00 UTC reopen.
- Overhead: $82,700.0, the overnight high, then $84,250, the 12 Oct high and our flip line for the market mood.
- Below: $80,567.9, Sunday’s low, then $79,709.0, the 15 Oct low.
On the calendar (UTC / CEST)
- Mon 19 Oct: CME’s Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures have their first trade date; see our report.
- Tue 20 Oct, 01:30 UTC (03:30 CEST): China’s preliminary quarterly value added by industry. About 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST): France’s solemn vote on the revenue half of its 2027 budget, which includes the crypto-to-stablecoin swap tax.
- Wed 21 Oct, about 15:00 UTC (17:00 CEST): Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade is due to activate with epoch 1064, per the Solana Foundation.
- Thu 22 Oct, 23:30 UTC (Fri 01:30 CEST): Japan’s September consumer prices, per the Statistics Bureau.
- Fri 23 Oct, 08:00 UTC (10:00 CEST): Deribit weekly options expiry.
As of 03:45 UTC (05:45 CEST), bitcoin was trading near $82,410 on Kraken and ether near $2,420. This is market commentary, not financial advice.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.