Key points
- Bitcoin hit $83,100 on Kraken in the 07:00 UTC hour, then slid to a US-session low of $81,648.4 in the 16:00 UTC hour while the Nasdaq Composite closed about 1.1% higher.
- The level that capped the day was $83,100; the level that held was the mid-$81,000s, well above Sunday’s $80,568 low.
- $84,250 is still the Brief’s Bearish flip line; a sustained break below $80,568 would bring $80,000 and the $78,000 put strike on Friday’s expiry back into view.
Stocks bounced. Bitcoin didn’t.
Bitcoin traded near $81,850 on Kraken at about 20:05 UTC, roughly 0.2% below its UTC open of $82,001.7 and about 1.5% under the morning high. Coinbase showed $81,839 with a 24-hour range of $80,808 to $83,076. Measured from Friday’s US close near $81,500, bitcoin was up only about 0.4%, against the Nasdaq’s 1.1%. Ether was near $2,398, down 0.4% on the UTC day.
What drove the session
The bounce in equities was a relief rally in tech. Yahoo Finance data at the close showed the Nasdaq Composite up about 1.1% at 26,431 and the S&P 500 up 0.4% at 7,691, while the Dow ended just below flat. Chip-stock funds were on course to end a nine-session losing run, CNBC reported, after last week’s AI-led selloff. The VIX fell to about 18.4 from 20.0.
Bitcoin had already priced its share of that relief overnight. Monday’s First Print tracked the climb from $80,568 as Nasdaq futures rose after Sunday’s 22:00 UTC reopen. By the 13:30 UTC cash open, bitcoin was already fading: the 13:00 UTC hour ran from $82,670 to $81,961, and the 13:00 and 14:00 UTC hours carried the heaviest volume since the Asian open.
Crypto stocks lagged too. Coinbase shares fell about 2.7% and Strategy’s about 0.6%, while BlackRock’s IBIT added 0.3%.
The bond market gave no help. The US 10-year Treasury yield, near 5.085% in the morning per CNBC, closed near 5.14%, up about 4 basis points on the day. Put simply, higher yields raise the return investors give up by holding an asset that pays none; how bond yields move bitcoin explains the link. Brent crude settled down 0.3% at $109.55 a barrel, still near the highs that weighed on Friday.
Bitcoin and the Nasdaq rose together overnight. By the afternoon the rope had slack in it.
Derivatives
Leverage stayed light. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $839 million near 20:05 UTC, slightly below the roughly $855 million logged at Friday’s close. Funding was 0.0063% per eight hours on Deribit and 0.01% on OKX and Binance: positive, but no one paying up to be long.
Implied volatility eased. Deribit’s DVOL index was about 37.5 in the 20:00 UTC hour, down from about 38.8 in the 11:00 UTC hour. In plain English, options traders are pricing slightly less movement over the next 30 days than they were this morning.
The 23 October weekly book carried about 15,229 BTC of open interest at our read, with puts outnumbering calls about 1.23 to one. The largest strike is still the $78,000 put at about 2,057 BTC, followed by the $70,000 put at about 1,085 BTC and the $80,000 put at about 929 BTC. The 30 October monthly, at about 148,748 BTC, leans to calls.
The levels
The level to watch is $83,100. Acceptance above Monday’s high opens the way to the $84,250 line; a sustained reclaim of $84,250 remains the first serious challenge to the Bearish Brief call. Below, the afternoon low at $81,648 is the first marker. A sustained break below Sunday’s $80,568 would put the $80,000 line, defended on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, under pressure again and bring the $78,000 put line on Friday’s book back into view.
The alternative read: bitcoin gave back about 1.5% from its high while open interest drifted lower and DVOL eased. That is consolidation without forced selling. It still needs $83,100 first, then $84,250. The latest ETF Desk showed spot bitcoin ETFs losing $82.4 million on Friday; Monday’s Farside row was still blank at 20:06 UTC.
Asia’s Tuesday brings China’s preliminary quarterly value added by industry at 01:30 UTC (03:30 CEST), followed by Tuesday’s Korea tax meeting with exchanges. France’s solemn budget vote and the close of comments on the SEC’s crypto proposal follow later in the day; the week-ahead calendar has the times.
As of 20:05 UTC, BTC is trading near $81,850.
Related: Tuesday's First Print: bitcoin dips with the Kospi
Related: Tuesday's US-close Market Read
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.