Bitcoin slipped 1.4% to approximately $80,100 on Thursday, briefly touching $79,600, as weakness in Asian technology shares and disappointing earnings from Alphabet weighed on risk sentiment. Traders are also monitoring the Federal Reserve’s latest policy decision and the upcoming U.S. inflation data.
Ether (ETH) fell 1.7%, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index declined 3.4%, highlighting broader weakness across digital assets.
South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.2%, with Samsung Electronics shares losing 4% despite the company posting record quarterly earnings. Investor concerns about shareholder returns contributed to the decline. Nasdaq-100 futures also fell 1.1% after Alphabet reported results that came in below expectations.
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, although two officials dissented in favor of a 25-basis-point increase. Chair Kevin Warsh offered no clear indication of the central bank’s next move in December. Investors are now turning their attention to September’s Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation report, a key indicator of price pressures for Fed policymakers.
Meanwhile, U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted $137 million in net inflows on Wednesday, marking a third consecutive session of gains. According to Farside Investors, the funds recorded combined inflows of $423.7 million over the three sessions.
Crypto Futures See Higher Trading Volume and Falling Open Interest
Trading activity in crypto futures accelerated, with 24-hour volume rising 21.8% to $198.8 billion. However, aggregate open interest declined 1.9%, suggesting traders were reducing exposure amid increased volatility. Liquidations jumped 84% to $337.4 million, while taker volume remained almost evenly split between buyers and sellers, at 50.1% and 49.9%, respectively.
Bitcoin’s price dropped 1.6%, accompanied by a 1.2% decline in open interest. Ether fell 2.1%, while its open interest decreased by a smaller 0.7%. Funding rates for both assets remained positive but moved lower, pointing to a reduction in bullish positioning.
Ether liquidations reached $71.6 million, close to Bitcoin’s $72.5 million total, even though Ether’s open interest was approximately half that of Bitcoin.
BNB showed a different pattern. Its open interest increased 1.7% even as its price declined 0.8%, while trading volume surged 70%. Funding rates turned negative, making BNB the most bearish among major cryptocurrencies by this measure. SUI displayed a similar trend, though on a smaller scale.
ZEC open interest contracted 12% as its price fell 5.4%. This reversed some of the previous session’s buildup, when open interest climbed 13.9% alongside a 6.3% price increase. Funding rates remained positive, indicating that long positions continued to pay short positions.
Across major cryptocurrencies, funding rates generally cooled but remained positive. BNB recorded the most negative rate, while XMR had the strongest positive reading.
Open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) turned negative for nearly all major tokens, indicating that aggressive selling had overtaken buying relative to open interest. This reversed the broadly positive readings recorded a day earlier. NEAR registered a particularly sharp negative shift.
Alphabet-linked GOOGL perpetual futures also saw a sharp change in positioning. Open interest rose 77% as the contract price fell 10%, while trading volume climbed to nearly five times its previous level.
Bitcoin Calls Attract Activity While Ether Options Favor Puts
Bitcoin options trading on Deribit showed a preference for calls among the most active contracts. Four of the six leading contracts were calls with strike prices above the spot price, led by the $82,500 call expiring on October 30.
However, the broader options skew continued to indicate demand for downside protection, suggesting traders remained cautious despite interest in higher strike prices.
Ether options showed a more defensive stance. Five of the six most-traded contracts were puts, with strike prices ranging from $2,280 to $1,500. The only call in the group was the December contract with a $3,200 strike. Puts remained more expensive than calls, reflecting continued concern about potential declines in ETH.
AI and DeFi Tokens Underperform as Market Sentiment Weakens
AI-related cryptocurrencies came under pressure alongside technology stocks. NEAR declined 7.8%, while Bittensor (TAO) fell 3.1%. The moves coincided with Alphabet shares dropping roughly 10% in premarket trading after its earnings disappointed investors.
Decentralized finance tokens also recorded notable losses. Raydium (RAY) dropped 8.9%, Jito (JTO) declined 6.8%, and Ethena (ENA) lost 6%.
JasmyCoin (JASMY) fell 10%, making it the worst performer in the CoinDesk 100. Dash (DASH) and Pump.fun (PUMP) each declined by approximately 6%.
Tron (TRX) bucked the broader trend, gaining 0.5%.
CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index slipped to 54 out of 100, down from 60 on Wednesday. The decline points to weaker relative performance among altcoins as investors remain cautious across risk-sensitive markets.
