Key points
- Bitcoin fell to $80,814 on Kraken in the 16:00 UTC hour, the day’s low, and ended the US session near $81,400, down about 3.1% on the UTC day.
- The level that matters is still $84,250; bitcoin has not closed an hour above it since the 22:00 UTC hour on Wednesday.
- A move back above $84,250 would undo the day; a break under $80,814 would put $80,000 in play.
Wednesday’s break lasted one evening. Thursday erased it, and then some.
Bitcoin traded near $81,376 on Kraken at about 20:03 UTC, down 3.1% from its UTC open of $84,023 and about 0.7% above the day’s low. Coinbase showed $81,381 with a 24-hour range of $80,790 to $84,780.
From Wednesday’s US close near $84,495, bitcoin was down about 3.7%. Ether was near $2,385, down 3.5% on the UTC day, and XRP lost about 4.4%.
What drove the session
Tech broke. Yahoo Finance data at the close showed the Nasdaq Composite down about 2.6% at 26,009 and the S&P 500 down 1.2% at 7,663, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended flat at 52,866. The VIX rose to about 19.8 from 16.7.
The selling hit AI-linked shares and chipmakers. Lam Research warned that supply-chain bottlenecks could limit next quarter’s revenue, CoinDesk reported, and Investor’s Business Daily listed Meta among the market leaders that tanked after its results.
Oil added to it. Brent crude ended near $113.1 a barrel, up about 3.9%, after renewed strikes in the Middle East.
Bonds went the other way. The US 10-year Treasury yield fell about 20 basis points to near 4.95%, its lowest in about a month, and traders cut the odds of a Federal Reserve rate rise next week to near zero, CoinDesk reported, citing CME FedWatch. French 10-year yields hit their highest since 2002.
Put simply, investors bought government bonds as a shelter, which pushed yields down, and lower yields usually help bitcoin; how bond yields affect bitcoin explains the link. This time the help did not arrive.
Money ran for the shelter of bonds, and bitcoin was left outside the door.
The slide started early. Bitcoin dropped below $84,250 in the 23:00 UTC hour on Wednesday and fell to about $82,720 by the 02:00 UTC hour, which Thursday’s First Print tracked. The US cash open brought another leg; the 16:00 UTC hour traded about 280 BTC on Kraken, the day’s heaviest, and printed the low.
About $431 million of crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours by early Thursday, CoinDesk reported, citing CoinGlass. Over the 12 hours to that point, bullish bets made up $210 million of the $222 million wiped out. For the mechanics, see what a liquidation is.
Crypto stocks fell harder than the coin. Strategy shares dropped about 5.0% and Coinbase’s about 4.5%, while BlackRock’s IBIT lost 3.7%. Gold fell about 2.6%.
Derivatives
Leverage kept shrinking. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $833 million near 20:03 UTC, down from about $851 million at Wednesday’s close. Funding was 0.0002% per eight hours on Deribit and 0.0094% on OKX, after OKX’s last settlement at 0.0078%.
Implied volatility rose, but only a little. Deribit’s DVOL index was about 38.1 in the 20:00 UTC hour, up from about 37.1 in the 06:00 UTC hour, after a peak near 38.9 at 12:00 UTC.
Friday’s weekly book carried about 16,130 BTC of open interest at our read, with puts and calls almost level at 1.02 to one. The $78,000 put remains the largest strike at about 2,068 BTC, then the $80,000 put at about 983 BTC and the $90,000 call at about 823 BTC. The 30 October monthly, at about 136,500 BTC, still leans to calls, with the $95,000 call the biggest line at about 20,008 BTC.
One weekend note: Coinbase Derivatives will be offline on Saturday 24 Oct from about 10:00 to 19:00 UTC for maintenance, Coinbase Markets said on X. Futures and perpetuals on Coinbase Financial Markets will be unavailable in that window, though account access remains.
The levels
The level to watch is still $84,250. Bitcoin has closed every hour below it since late Wednesday, and the gap at the close was more than $2,800.
Below, the day’s low at $80,814 is the first marker, then $80,000, a round number that is also the second-largest strike in Friday’s options book.
Above, the Asian-session shelf near $82,700 to $82,850 is the first hurdle, then $84,250. Only a sustained move back above that line would cancel Thursday’s slide.
The alternative read: open interest fell again and funding stayed close to flat, so much of the selling looks like forced exits rather than new bets against bitcoin. Leverage flushed this way can leave less fuel for the next leg down, and falling Treasury yields would normally be a tailwind once stocks steady.
For Wednesday’s session, see Wednesday’s US-close Market Read.
As of 20:03 UTC, BTC is trading near $81,400.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.