Market Read: Nasdaq slides, crypto stocks fall, BTC near $77,000

Key points

Bitcoin traded near $76,980 on Kraken at 14:54 UTC, down 1.1% from its UTC open of $77,800 and above Friday’s low of $76,330.
The level that matters is $84,250, now about $7,270 above the price.
Hourly closes back above $78,670, Friday’s high, would make the week’s low look like a floor; closes below $76,230, the 18 Sep low, would take the market to prices not seen since then.

Wall Street opened with a tech problem and a crypto problem. Bitcoin, for once, was the calm one.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 592 points, or 2.3%, at the open to 25,592, its lowest in more than two months, Reuters reported. In the first half hour after the bell, bitcoin slipped from $77,162 to a low of $76,461 on Kraken, a drop of less than 1%.

By 14:51 UTC the Nasdaq was down 2.1% and the S&P 500 1.3%, according to Yahoo Finance data. Ether was at about $2,230, down 0.8% on the day; Solana fell 1.0% to about $94.44, while XRP edged up 0.4% to about $1.240.

What drove the session

Two of the biggest names in tech set the tone. Intel shares fell about 27% after a cash-burn warning, and Amazon fell about 2% as investors weighed its AI spending, Reuters said; by 14:51 UTC, Intel was at $66.99, against Thursday’s close of $92.07.

Crypto stocks had their own reason. Coinbase fell 13.2% to $139.45, the morning after its third-quarter results and the Binance hack. Strategy dropped 8.1% to $130.16, Circle 8.7% and Robinhood 8.0%.

BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF, IBIT, fell 4.9%, roughly in line with bitcoin’s 4.7% fall since Thursday’s US close.

Put simply, the companies that earn their living from crypto fell nearly three times as far as bitcoin itself since Thursday’s close.

The economic data did not add much. US employment costs rose 0.8% in the third quarter, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, after 0.9% in the second quarter and in line with forecasts, Reuters reported. Wages rose 3.1% over the year and benefits 3.9%.

The Chicago purchasing managers’ index fell to 55.3 in October from 58.8, MNI said, below forecasts of about 56 but still in expansion territory. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to about 4.94%, and gold futures fell 2.7%.

Binance was the other clock in the room. Co-chief executive Richard Teng said at 14:32 UTC that the exchange is “very hopeful” users can withdraw before its Sunday deadline, “which is on track to be within 40 hours”, in a video. Withdrawals were still paused at the time of writing; our Security Alert carries the latest.

Bitcoin spent the morning like a ship riding at anchor in a storm, swinging on the chain but not drifting. Its range since the 02:00 UTC low has been about $2,340, and Europe’s session after this morning’s euro-area growth data was a slow drift lower rather than a fall. Fast drops tend to come from forced selling, which our guide on what liquidations are explains.

Derivatives

Leverage has been coming out, not going in. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $699 million at 14:54 UTC, down from about $750 million on Thursday evening. Funding was flat, at close to zero.

Options traders are paying up for protection. Deribit’s DVOL index, a gauge of expected volatility, was 40.2, against 37.9 on Thursday evening. Friday’s large monthly expiry settled at 08:00 UTC, so the big $95,000 call line from earlier in the week is gone.

The levels

The level to watch is $84,250, about $7,270 away.

Above, $78,670 is Friday’s high, then $80,000, which bitcoin lost on Thursday night.

Below, $76,330 is Friday’s low and $76,230 the 18 Sep low. Bitcoin is down 7.9% for October with one day of the month left.

The alternative read: if Binance reopens withdrawals on time and its reserve report adds up, the crypto-stock sell-off may look like an overreaction by Monday. If the deadline slips, today’s calm could prove to be the eye of the storm rather than its end.

For the morning view, see Friday’s First Print; for how Thursday’s slide started, see Thursday’s Market Read.

As of 14:54 UTC, BTC is trading near $76,980.

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