Key points

  • Bitcoin traded near $77,015 on Kraken at about 05:00 UTC, roughly 0.2% below its UTC open of $77,204 and about 7.8% below the 1 Oct open of $83,565. Coinbase showed $76,984.
  • The night was quiet: a range of $76,469 to $77,494 since 21:00 UTC, with no new headline to move it.
  • The map: $77,494 and then Friday’s high of $78,667 overhead, $84,250 well beyond; $76,469, then the 18 Sep low near $76,231, below.

The month is almost over. The verdict is not in doubt, only its size.

The largest cryptocurrency was near $77,015 on Kraken at 05:00 UTC. Ether was near $2,235, Solana near $95.43 and XRP near $1.241. The total crypto market was down about 3.5% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, and bitcoin’s share of it stood at 59.2%.

Friday’s US-close Market Read laid out the record. On Bitstamp’s daily history, only 2014 produced a worse October. Bitcoin would need to climb about $2,800, to near $79,800, by midnight UTC to beat 2018’s 4.5% fall and stay out of second place.

A night without a push

Friday’s low of $76,155.5 came in the 18:00 UTC hour, during the US session. Since then the moves have been small.

The low after 21:00 UTC was $76,468.9. The high was $77,494.0, in the 01:00 UTC hour, the busiest of the night on Kraken at 129.2 BTC. The 03:00 hour traded just 26.4 BTC.

Leverage kept leaving. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $700 million, down from $711 million at Friday’s US close and $724 million a day earlier.

Put simply, open interest is the value of futures contracts still open. Falling open interest alongside a flat price means traders are closing bets, not adding new ones.

Funding stayed close to neutral. Deribit showed 0.0006% per eight hours, Binance’s last rate was 0.01% and Bybit’s 0.0069%. Deribit’s DVOL, a gauge of expected volatility, was near 40.6.

The money that left

US spot bitcoin ETFs lost a net $643.2 million on Friday, the largest daily outflow since 25 Jun, per Farside. That left the funds about $515.9 million down for October. Friday’s ETF Desk has the fund-by-fund table.

No ETF flows land before Monday. The weekend has its own risks. Binance customers are still waiting to withdraw after the Binance hack, and several DeFi sites spent the night repairing hijacked DeFi domains.

Watch the monthly close, then watch Binance.

Chart to watch

  • Kraken’s hourly candles since 21:00 UTC Friday: a band of roughly $76,470 to $77,490. A clean break of either edge on weekend volume says more about intent than about trend.
  • Overhead: $77,494, the overnight high, then $78,667.3, Friday’s high. A daily close above that would make Friday’s low look like a floor. Bitcoin has not traded above $84,250 since early on 22 Oct.
  • Below: $76,155.5, Friday’s low, and $76,231, the 18 Sep low just above it. Hourly closes under that zone would put prices back where they were in mid-September.

On the calendar (UTC / local European time)

  • Sun 1 Nov, 00:00 UTC (01:00 CET): October’s monthly candle closes.
  • Sun 1 Nov, around 05:30 UTC (06:30 CET): Binance’s target for resuming withdrawals, about 34 hours after its Friday 19:33 UTC update.
  • Sun 1 Nov: US clocks go back one hour. US index futures reopen at 23:00 UTC (00:00 CET Monday).
  • Mon 2 Nov: Binance has said it will publish proof-of-reserves results. The Bank of Japan’s Outlook Report full text is due at 05:00 UTC (06:00 CET).
  • Tue 3 Nov: US midterm elections.

As of 05:00 UTC (06:00 CET), bitcoin was trading near $77,015 on Kraken and ether near $2,235. This is market commentary, not financial advice.

Related: Friday’s First Print

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