Bitcoin Ready for ‘Big Moves’ on 91% Chance of Fed Rate Cut: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

It’s a tough market to trade as bitcoin’s (BTC) price swings sharply. Following a late Thursday drop from $123,000 to $120,000, BTC has recovered to trade around $121,400, with privacy coins such as Zcash (ZEC) and dash (DASH) rising sharply. The CoinDesk 20 Index has bounced to 4,178 points from the overnight low of 4,097.

BTC’s volatility has picked up, likely in expectation of another Fed rate cut later this month.

“Bitcoin volatility is poised for a breakout. Implied volatilities across 14, 30, and 90-day expiries have surged to their highest levels in the past 30 days, pointing to increased anticipation of big moves ahead,” Nick Forster, founder of decentralized exchange Derive, said.

Forster added that the so-called vol spike comes as markets price in a near-certain 25 basis point rate cut by the Federal Reserve later this month.

Polymarket bettors price in a 91% chance that the Fed will reduce rates by 25 basis points at the Oct. 28-29 meeting, even as the ongoing government shutdown has delayed key data releases. The central bank cut rates to 25 bps to 4% last month.

In other news, State Street’s 2025 Digital Assets Outlook showed that nearly 60% of institutional investors are planning to boost their digital asset exposure in the coming year, with the average exposure expected to double within three years.

Several U.S. Democratic senators reportedly made a counter proposal to the market structure bill, involving a “restricted list” for DeFi protocols deemed too risky. Crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsk said it could derail regulatory progress while undermining the bipartisan support for the Clarity Act seen in the House in July.

Meanwhile, Chainlink launched a Chainlink-grade RPC endpoint for the HyperEVM testnet, providing builders in the @HyperliquidX ecosystem with infrastructure for developers working on innovative solutions like HIP-3, vaults, liquid staking tokens (LSTs), and spot deployment.

In traditional markets, the dollar index continues to hover at two-month highs, as China tightened its grip on rare earth exports, ratcheting up trends ahead of an expected Xi-Trump meeting in South Korea later this month. Stay alert!

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

CryptoNothing scheduled.MacroOct. 10, 8 a.m.: Brazil Aug. PPI YoY (Prev. 1.36%), MoM (Prev. -0.3%).Oct. 10, 8:30 a.m.: Canada Sept. Unemployment Rate Est. 7.2%.Oct. 10, 10 a.m.: Michigan Consumer Sentiment Oct. (Preliminary) Est. 54.2.Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)Nothing scheduled.

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

Governance votes & callsDecentraland DAO is voting to replace the DAO Committee with a 3-of-5 multisig of ecosystem representatives, shifting execution-only duties while the council retains oversight. Voting ends Oct. 10.UnlocksOct. 10: Linea (LINEA) to unlock 6.57% of its circulating supply worth $26.73 million.Oct. 11: Aptos (APT) to unlock 2.15% of its circulating supply worth $59.98 million.Oct. 12: Aethir (ATH) to unlock 16.08% of its circulating supply worth $67.7 million.Token LaunchesNo major launches.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

Day 2 of 2: North American Blockchain Summit (Dallas)

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

The recent Chinese memecoin frenzy which sent tokens like GIGGLE, 四, and 哈基米 on PancakeSwap V2 soaring, has abruptly fizzled out.Within 24 hours, many of these assets lost more than 95% of their value, wiping out speculative gains built on hype and social momentum.The crash coincided with a broader memecoin market downturn that Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao described as a “blood bath,” fueled by FUD and false rumors about token listings.The plunge comes after Binance rolled out its “Meme Rush” platform that was supposed to provide a structured path for tokens before being tradable on various decentralized and centralized exchanges.However, much like how Solana memecoins faded in February following the launch of TRUMP and MELANIA, BNB Chain memes appear to be following the same route to demise.Pancake Swap trading volume has remained inflated at $18 bilion over the past 24 hours, with a handful of newly-launched tokens catching a bid, although it’s worth noting that liquidity remains relatively low; with w

Derivatives Positioning

Data from Coinglass shows that many BTC perpetual short positions face the risk of liquidation above $121,600. So, a sustained move above the said level could trigger a short squeeze, leading to a quick rally toward record highs.The market is undergoing a leverage reset, with volatility flushing out excess positioning on both sides, Glassnode said. Still, the overall positioning in the global BTC futures market remains elevated, with open interest just shy of the record 755K BTC.BNB, XRP, ADA, and TRX have seen a drop in futures open interest (OI) in the past 24 hours, indicating capital outflows. BTC’s OI has risen by 1%, with ETH up just 0.4%.The XMR market is looking a bit overheated, with annualized funding rates nearing 60%, a sign of frenzied demand for bullish bets. Funding rates for other major tokens, including BTC and ETH, paint a bullish picture, but nothing out of the ordinary.On decentralized exchange Derive, open interest in the Oct. 31 expiry options is concentrated in calls at strikes $128K and $145K, reflecting a bullish bias. ETH options activity is equally bullish, with OI concentrated in $5K and $6K calls.On Deribit, however, the call-put skew for BTC and ETH remains mildly negative across timeframes, reflecting a bias for protective puts. Block flows on Paradigm featured ETH puts and straddles.

Market Movements

BTC is up 0.17% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $121,389.27 (24hrs: -0.59%)ETH is down 0.37% at $4,323.41 (24hrs: -0.54%)CoinDesk 20 is up 0.4% at 4,162.46 (24hrs: +0.02%)Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bp at 2.86%BTC funding rate is at 0.0045% (4.8968% annualized) on BinanceDXY is down 0.24% at 99.29Gold futures are up 1.00% at $4,012.20Silver futures are up 2.45% at $48.31Nikkei 225 closed down 1.01% at 48,088.80Hang Seng closed down 1.73% at 26,290.32FTSE is down 0.14% at 9,495.88Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,627.22DJIA closed on Thursday down 0.52% at 46,358.42S&P 500 closed down 0.28% at 6,735.11Nasdaq Composite closed unchanged at 23,024.62S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.76% at 30,269.98S&P 40 Latin America closed down 0.51% at 2,858.54U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 3.5 bps at 4.113%E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,785.00E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.1% at 25,313.50E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.11% at 46,643.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 59.36% (unchanged)Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03563 (-0.75%)Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 997 EH/sHashprice (spot): $51.21Total Fees: 3.79 BTC / $462,241CME Futures Open Interest: 147,025 BTCBTC priced in gold: 30.4 ozBTC vs gold market cap: 8.59%

Technical Analysis

BTC’s dominance rate, or its share in the total market cap, is looking to establish a new uptrend, having risen from 57% to over 59% in two weeks. The increase indicates that capital is again flowing into the market leader. In other words, the altcoin season is still not here.

Crypto Equities

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $387 (-0.07%), -0.22% at $386.15Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $150.48 (+0.01%), -0.19% at $150.19Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $42.22 (+2.01%), +2.08% at $43.10Bullish (BLSH): closed at $66.71 (-1.04%), +0.13% at $66.80MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $20.2 (0%), +1.53% at $20.51Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $22.28 (+1.32%), +0.4% at $22.37Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $18.04 (+2.91%), +1.16% at $18.25CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $20.09 (+5.85%), +4.03% at $20.90CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $57.57 (+3.95%), +3.42% at $59.54Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $29.67 (-1.33%), +1.08% at $29.99

Crypto Treasury Companies

Strategy (MSTR): closed at $320.29 (-3.18%), +0.53% at $322.00Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $28.32 (+0.43%)SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $16.95 (-3.53%), -1.47% at $16.70Upexi (UPXI): closed at $6.85 (-4.46%), -0.44% at $6.82Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $2.54 (+1.6%), +11.42% at $2.83

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

Daily net flow: $197.8 millionCumulative net flows: $62.73 billionTotal BTC holdings ~ 1.36 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$8.7 millionCumulative net flows: $15.1 billionTotal ETH holdings ~ 6.89 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

‘Bitcoin Is Not an Asset Class’: UK’s Biggest Investment Platform Has a Stark Warning for Investors (CNBC): Hargreaves Lansdown warned bitcoin’s volatility, lack of intrinsic value and unpredictable performance make it unsuitable for portfolios, even as the U.K.’s financial regulator gives retail investors access to crypto ETNs.Bitcoin Implied Volatility Reaches 2.5-Month High as Seasonal Strength Kicks In (CoinDesk): Bitcoin implied volatility index, which represents the annualized expected price turbulence over four weeks, surged above 42, mirroring similar seasonal spikes seen in October 2023 and 2024.Monero Releases Privacy Boost Against Sneaky Network Nodes (CoinDesk): The “Fluorine Fermi” upgrade changes how nodes choose peers, preventing multiple connections within the same IP subnet and making it harder for malicious clusters to trace transaction activity.Hyperliquid Introduces ‘Based Streams,’ a DEX-Powered Live Streaming Platform (CoinDesk): The livestreaming feature lets creators broadcast trades, accept token donations and reward viewers via the decentralized perpetual swaps exchange’s Hypercore protocol.Ray Dalio Warns of Soaring Debt and ‘Civil War’ Brewing in US (Bloomberg): The Bridgewater Associates founder urged Congress to pair tax hikes with spending cuts to curb ballooning national debt, while also citing wealth inequality and geopolitical tensions as major concerns.

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