Key points
- Bitcoin traded near $79,736 on Kraken at 20:54 UTC, down 0.4% from its UTC open of $80,049, after reaching $80,702 in the 15:00 UTC hour.
- The level that matters is still $84,250, about $4,500 above the price; every hourly close on Monday was below it.
- A break of the day’s $79,265 low would bring Saturday’s $79,121 into play; only hourly closes above $84,250 would change the picture.
The S&P 500 rose 0.7% and ended 1.8% below its record. Bitcoin finished the US session lower than it started.
At the US close at 20:00 UTC, bitcoin stood at $79,888 on Kraken, and by 20:54 UTC it had slipped to $79,736. Coinbase showed $79,726, with a 24-hour range of $79,255 to $80,710.
Ether fell 1.0% to about $2,303 and Solana 1.1% to about $100.18. XRP lost 0.5% to about $1.288.
What drove the session
Stocks did. The S&P 500 gained 53.09 points to 7,676.77, the Dow rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq 0.8%, the Associated Press reported. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.98% from 5.00%, and Brent crude fell 0.9% to $110.74.
Bitcoin did not follow. Its busiest hour on Kraken was 13:00 UTC, just before the opening bell, when it fell to $79,336 on about 436 BTC of volume. We could not find a clear trigger for that drop.
Buyers then lifted it to $80,702 in the 15:00 UTC hour, the high of the day, on about 383 BTC. By the end of the 18:00 UTC hour it was back under $80,000, where it stayed.
A rising tide on Wall Street left bitcoin’s boat on the sand.
Crypto stocks went the same way as the coin, not the index. Coinbase closed down 2.9% at $159.60, Strategy fell 4.2% to $139.82 and BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF, IBIT, lost 1.6%, according to Yahoo Finance data.
Strategy said on Monday that it bought no bitcoin last week. US spot bitcoin ETFs had outflows of $635.6 million on Thursday and $137.9 million on Friday, according to Farside Investors. Monday’s figures were not yet out.
The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision on Wednesday, and it is expected to hold, AP said. Put simply, with the 10-year yield still near 5%, cash and bonds pay well enough that a non-yielding asset has to work harder for buyers. Our guide explains how bond yields affect bitcoin.
Derivatives
Leverage is not piling in. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $829 million at 20:54 UTC, down from about $833 million earlier on Monday. Funding was mildly positive at 0.0056% per eight hours on Deribit and 0.01% on OKX.
Deribit’s DVOL index held between about 38.4 and 38.7 all day, so options traders did not price in a bigger move.
Friday’s 30 Oct options hold about 135,700 BTC of open interest, with a put-to-call ratio of 0.55. The $95,000 call is the largest line at about 19,950 BTC; the biggest put is the $70,000 strike, at about 4,380 BTC.
The levels
The level to watch is still $84,250, about $4,500 away.
Below, $80,000 has turned from floor to ceiling, at least for this evening. Monday’s $79,265 low comes first, then Saturday’s $79,121. Under that, the chart is thin down to about $76,200, the 18 Sep low.
Above, Monday’s $80,702 high is the first hurdle, then Saturday’s early high near $81,100, then $84,250.
The alternative read: this is drift, not selling. Volatility pricing is flat, funding is positive and options traders still hold far more calls than puts into Friday’s expiry, so a Fed decision that eases yields could pull bitcoin back above $80,000 quickly.
For the morning view, see Monday’s First Print, and for the Fed, ECB and earnings dates, this week’s calendar.
As of 20:54 UTC, BTC is trading near $79,700.
Related: The next First Print: bitcoin slips to $79,500 in Asia as the Kospi jumps
Related: Tuesday's Market Read: bitcoin back above $80,000 as AI stocks lift the Nasdaq
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.