UPDATED 09:57 UTC, 22 Oct. Bitcoin kept sliding through the European morning. It broke below Wednesday’s $82,543 low in the 06:00 UTC hour and touched $81,544.60 on Kraken in the 09:00 UTC hour, its lowest since Monday, before trading near $81,826 at 09:57 UTC (Coinbase $81,825); ether was near $2,404. The $81,100 area flagged above is now about $700 away. China’s CSI 300 closed 1.8% lower at 4,036.30 and the Hang Seng 3.0% lower at 22,934.68, Yahoo Finance data show; the CSI 300 is now 20% below its June peak, CoinDesk reported. The Euro Stoxx 50 was down 1.8% at 09:27 UTC, Nasdaq 100 futures 1.9% and Brent crude was up 3.2% at $112.29 a barrel at 09:32 UTC. The mood stays Bearish.
Key points
- Bitcoin closed every hour of Wednesday’s US session above $84,250 on Kraken, peaking at $84,840. It lost the level before Asia opened and fell to $82,600 overnight; it was near $82,760 at 03:55 UTC, with Coinbase at $82,770.
- South Korea’s Kospi was down 2.6% at 03:35 UTC as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix slid on worries about AI spending, Yonhap reported. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 2.8%.
- Our $84,250 rule puts the market mood at Bearish. A sustained break below Wednesday’s $82,543 low would put the $81,100 area back in view.
Wednesday, bitcoin finally stayed above the line. Thursday morning, Asia took it back.
Bitcoin traded near $82,760 on Kraken at 03:55 UTC, 1.5% below the UTC-day open and about $2,000 below its close at 22:00 UTC. Ether was near $2,439, solana near $105.26 and XRP near $1.343.
As how Wednesday ended showed, the US session belonged to the buyers. Every hourly close from 14:00 to 22:00 UTC held above $84,250.
The drop came when Hong Kong opened
The first sign was small. The 23:00 UTC hour closed at $84,022.5, bitcoin’s first hourly close below $84,250 since Wednesday’s 13:00 UTC bar.
Seoul’s open at 00:00 UTC changed little. Bitcoin hovered around $84,200 for the next 90 minutes.
Then, in the 15 minutes from 01:30 UTC, when Hong Kong opened, it fell from $84,262 to $83,720. About 61 BTC changed hands on Kraken in that bar.
The heaviest selling came at 02:15 UTC: 128 BTC in one quarter-hour, with a low of $82,719. The 02:00 UTC hour was the busiest since Wednesday afternoon in New York. The night’s low, $82,600, came at 03:30 UTC.
Asia’s stock markets were moving the same way.
The Kospi opened 1.14% lower and was down 2.25% at 5,605.54 by 11:20 a.m. Seoul time, Yonhap reported, as “concerns over investments in the artificial intelligence (AI) value chain” hit chip shares.
Samsung Electronics was down 3.36% and SK hynix 3.63%.
That came after a strong night on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.05%, Yonhap noted.
The Bank of Korea held its policy rate at 3% with all seven board members in favour, after hikes in July and August, Yonhap reported. The bank kept the door open to further increases, citing oil prices and the Middle East.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng fell 2.7% by 10:50 a.m. and was heading for its lowest close since 30 June, the South China Morning Post reported. The Hang Seng Tech index fell 4.3%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.7% at 03:40 UTC.
US index futures turned lower: Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1.2% and S&P 500 futures 0.6% at 03:45 UTC. Brent crude was near $110.47 a barrel, 1.5% above Wednesday’s settlement, and the dollar index sat near 101.6.
The US 10-year yield closed Wednesday at 5.15%, up from 5.12%. Our guide on how bond yields move bitcoin explains why higher yields weigh on an asset with no coupon.
Derivatives: the sell-off was spot-led
Funding barely moved. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual showed 0.0004% per eight hours; OKX showed 0.0038% for the current period after -0.0047% last settled.
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.
Deribit perpetual open interest was about $837 million, down from $851 million on Wednesday evening. A drop in price with falling open interest suggests positions were closed rather than new shorts opened.
The DVOL index read 37.49, which implies a typical daily move of about 2%. The overnight fall, about 2.6% from Wednesday’s last high to the low, used more than a day’s worth of expected range in under six hours.
Bitcoin’s share of total crypto market value was 59.5% on CoinGecko; the total market fell 2.6% in 24 hours.
US spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $524.8 million on Wednesday, Farside data show, led by BlackRock’s IBIT ($235.0 million) and Fidelity’s FBTC ($212.7 million). Ether funds took in $14.9 million, their first inflow since 13 Oct. Those flows were struck at Wednesday’s US close, before the Asian sell-off.
The level to watch is $83,346, where the 01:00 UTC hour closed. Acceptance above it reopens the UTC-day open at $84,022, then $84,250. A sustained break below $82,543, Wednesday’s low, would bring Tuesday’s $81,099.7 low back into view.
A different reading
Bitcoin may simply have run out of buyers after a 1.3% gain on Wednesday, and Asia’s open was the moment the bids thinned, not the reason.
Read that way, Wednesday’s ETF demand still stands, and the real test is whether US buyers return at the 13:30 UTC open, not what Seoul does.
Respect the range until $84,250 is back.
Chart to watch
- The lead chart: bitcoin’s slide from the quarter-hour Hong Kong opened, against the Kospi’s second leg lower.
- Overhead: $83,346, the 01:00 UTC close, then $84,022, the UTC-day open, then $84,250, the 12 Oct high and our flip line for the market mood.
- Below: $82,600, the overnight low, then $82,543, Wednesday’s low, then $81,099.7, Tuesday’s low.
On the calendar (UTC / CEST)
- Thu 22 Oct, 12:30 UTC (14:30 CEST): US weekly jobless claims, per the Department of Labor.
- 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.
Also see Wednesday’s First Print, written when Seoul was rallying and bitcoin was not.
As of 03:55 UTC (05:55 CEST), bitcoin was trading near $82,760 on Kraken and ether near $2,439. This is market commentary, not financial advice.
Related: Chain Signals: offers stack below 84,000 as bitcoin tests its ceiling
Related: ETF Desk: Wednesday bitcoin ETF flows, fund by fund
Related: Thursday US close: the Nasdaq slid and bitcoin hit a new day low
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.