Key points
- Bitcoin hit $83,129.3 on Kraken in the 00:15 UTC bar, just after Seoul opened, then slipped to about $82,670 by 03:54 UTC. Coinbase showed $82,668. That is 0.3% below the UTC-day open.
- South Korea’s Kospi rose as much as 4.5% after Tuesday’s drop of nearly 4%, led by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, Yonhap reported. It was still up about 3.3% at 03:34 UTC.
- The line that would flip the structure is unchanged at $84,250, about 1.9% above the market. A sustained break below Tuesday evening’s $82,415 would put the $81,100 area back in view.
Tuesday, bitcoin fell with Seoul. Wednesday, it would not rise with it.
Bitcoin traded near $82,670 on Kraken at 03:54 UTC, about $460 below its overnight high and $670 below Tuesday’s $83,339 peak. Ether was near $2,444, solana near $105.86 and XRP near $1.332.
As how Tuesday ended showed, bitcoin spiked after the US open and faded into the close. The night added little to that picture.
Seoul’s rebound was a chip story, not a crypto bid
The Kospi opened 2.05% higher at 5,666.34 and reached 5,800.55 by 11:02 a.m. Seoul time, up 4.46%, Yonhap reported.
The Korea Exchange briefly paused program trading at 10:51 a.m. under its buy-side “sidecar” rule.
Samsung Electronics was up 7.09% and SK hynix 7.2% by 11:20 a.m., according to Yonhap. Foreign investors bought a net 320.52 billion won of shares and institutions 148.32 billion won, while individuals sold about 1 trillion won.
That is the reverse of Tuesday, when foreigners sold chipmakers and bitcoin dipped to $81,100 in the same hour.
Bitcoin’s best 15 minutes of the night started at 00:15 UTC, inside Seoul’s first half-hour. About 62 BTC changed hands on Kraken in that bar, the most of any quarter-hour since midnight. Then the buying stopped.
By the time the Kospi peaked around 02:00 UTC, bitcoin had already given back most of its gain. Its Wednesday low so far, $82,634.9, came in the 02:30 UTC bar.
The rest of Asia split. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.1%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.6% from its last close at 03:39 UTC.
US index futures leaned higher: Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.9% and S&P 500 futures 0.35% at 03:42 UTC. Brent crude was back near $110.44 a barrel, 1.5% above Tuesday’s settlement, and the dollar index sat near 101.8.
The US 10-year yield closed Tuesday at 5.12%, down from 5.14%. Our guide on how bond yields move bitcoin explains why that matters for an asset that pays no coupon.
Derivatives: positioned for nothing much
Funding stayed close to flat. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual showed 0.0044% per eight hours; OKX showed 0.0029% for the current period after 0.0055% last settled.
Deribit perpetual open interest was about $847 million, little changed from $844 million a day earlier. The DVOL index read 37.19.
Put simply, funding is the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual future; near zero means neither side is paying up to hold its bet. With DVOL implying a typical daily move of about 2%, Wednesday’s range so far, about 0.6%, has been quiet.
Bitcoin’s share of total crypto market value was 59.5% on CoinGecko. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $23.2 million on Tuesday, Farside data show, after Monday’s $526.7 million.
The level to watch is $83,129, the overnight high. Acceptance above it reopens Tuesday’s $83,339 peak, then $84,250. A sustained break below $82,415, Tuesday evening’s low, would bring Tuesday’s $81,099.7 low back into view.
A different reading
Bitcoin may simply have had no reason to follow. Seoul’s rally was concentrated in two chipmakers, retail investors sold into it, and Hong Kong fell at the same time.
Read that way, Tuesday’s shared low was coincidence as much as contagion, and the bigger test comes from Europe’s data and the US session, not from Asia.
Respect the range until $83,339 gives way.
Chart to watch
- The lead chart: bitcoin’s overnight high at Seoul’s open against the Kospi’s climb that followed.
- Overhead: $83,129, the overnight high, then $83,339, Tuesday’s high, then $84,250, the 12 Oct high and our flip line for the market mood.
- Below: $82,415, Tuesday evening’s low, then $81,099.7, Tuesday’s low.
On the calendar (UTC / CEST)
- Wed 21 Oct, 06:00 UTC (08:00 CEST): UK consumer prices for September, per the Office for National Statistics.
- Wed 21 Oct, about 13:20 UTC (15:20 CEST): Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade is due to activate with epoch 1064, per the Solana Foundation, earlier than the roughly 15:00 UTC it gave last week. Our reading of current slot times points to about 13:40 UTC. See what Alpenglow changes.
- 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; see our week-ahead calendar.
As of 03:54 UTC (05:54 CEST), bitcoin was trading near $82,670 on Kraken and ether near $2,444. This is market commentary, not financial advice.
Related: ETF Desk: Tuesday's bitcoin ETF flows, fund by fund
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.