Bitcoin Little Changed, Faces ‘Double-Edged Sword’ in Leveraged Bets: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin BTC$89,275.34 pulled back slightly to around $114,500 as traders sounded a note of caution before Wednesday's Federal Reserve policy decision even though the central bank is projected to lower interest rates in a shift toward monetary easing that could boost risk assets, including crypto.

The Fed is expected to cut the benchmark rate by 25 basis points, but for now markets are restrained. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index is little changed in the past 24 hours, losing less than 0.1% and bitcoin dropped just 0.8%.

Open interest in crypto futures increased to nearly $30 billion from $25 billion in the past week, Bitget Wallet research analyst Lacie Zhang pointed out, in a sign of rising leveraged bets that could trigger rapid moves either way.

Zhang called this a “double-edge sword that could amplify upside momentum above $112K but heighten liquidation risks below $110K.”

Despite the short-term drop, bitcoin is up around 6% over the past week, buoyed by optimism around a possible U.S.–China trade breakthrough and expectations that the Fed will keep liquidity flowing.

Still, there are reasons for caution. Spanish bank Bankinter warned that global markets may be riding on overconfidence. Global stocks and real estate are interpreting every development as positive, while ignoring underlying risks, the bank said.

“If only it would consolidate levels, if only it would rest ... but we fear that won't happen,” Bankinter’s analysts wrote in their morning note. “It might be good in the short term, but perhaps not so much if we consider 2026.”

The bank’s analysts say near-term profit taking is likely given the new highs seen across sectors.

The next move likely hinges not only on the Fed’s tone going forward, but also on what comes out of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week. Stay alert!

What to Watch

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

• Crypto
  • Oct. 28, 2:53 p.m.: Ethereum’s Fusaka hard fork upgrade is expected to be applied to the Hoodi testnet.
  • Oct. 28: Canary Capital’s spot LTC$81.59 and Hedera (HBAR) ETFs begin trading on Nasdaq, while Bitwise Asset Management’s spot Solana SOL$132.15 ETF starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
• Macro
  • Oct. 28, 8 a.m.: Mexico Sept. Unemployment Rate (Prev. 2.9%).
  • Oct. 28, 10 a.m.: Oct. Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index Est. -14.
  • Day 1 of 2: Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • Oct. 28: PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market.

Token Events

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

• Governance votes & calls
  • GnosisDAO is voting to replace subgraph-based voting with onchain and beacon chain data, adding StakeWise (sGNO, osGNO) support and improving voting accuracy while removing reliance on The Graph. Voting ends Oct. 28.
• Unlocks
  • Oct. 28: SIGN$0.03787 to unlock 21.48% of its circulating supply worth $12 million.
  • Oct. 28: GRASS$0.3316 to unlock 72.4% of its circulating supply worth $77.4 million.
  • Oct. 28: JUP$0.2237 to unlock 1.72% of its circulating supply worth $19.5 million.
• Token Launches
  • No major launches.

Conferences

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

• Day 1 of 2: Blockchain Life 2025 (Dubai).
• Day 1 of 4: The 9th Edition of the Future Investment Initiative (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• The altcoin market remained in a state of flux on Tuesday with several tokens, including zcash ZEC$336.19 and dash DASH$44.75, failing to cling on to recent gains.
• One token stands out: HBAR$0.1333. That's jumped 17% in the past 24 hours after an announcement that Canary Capital's HBAR ETF will be listed on the NYSE Arca when markets open on Tuesday.
• Daily trading volume for HBAR spiked to $871 million, representing a 344% rise on the previous 24 hour period.
• The token trades at 20.9 cents, still below its January peak of 37.5 cents but significantly above June's low of 13.35 cents.
• There was also a notable gain for TRUMP, the memecoin issued by the U.S. president at the start of the year. The 11% surge occurred after Trump revealed a trade deal with China was "imminent."
• The altcoin sector in general continues to underperform bitcoin, with CoinMarketCap's "altcoin season" indicator printing 28/100 after slumping from 78/100 in September.

Derivatives Positioning

• The BTC futures market is showing a sustained recovery, with open interest (OI) slowly increasing to $27.62 billion as traders continue to gradually re-engage.
• Funding rates have solidified their flip to predominantly positive, with major exchanges like Binance posting a high annualized rate of 7.99%.
• The combination of slowly grinding OI and positive funding rates suggests a continuation of slight positive signs and a bullish bias for the market.
• The bitcoin options market is displaying a measured bullish outlook, supported by the upward-sloping implied volatility term structure — a position known as contango — which anticipates higher volatility in the future.
• Sentiment is turning even more positive as the 25-delta skew is slowly picking up, with the one-week skew at 4%. That means traders are paying a premium for call options. This measured bullish conviction is strongly reinforced by the 24-hour put-call volume, which is heavily in favor of calls (64%).
• Coinglass data shows $270 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 71-29 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($85 million), BTC ($54 million) and others ($36 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $116,000 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price rise.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 0.17% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $114,414.02 (24hrs: -0.79%)
• ETH is down 0.48% at $4,120.75 (24hrs: -1.11%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 0.6% at 3,843.64 (24hrs: +0.27%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 7 bps at 2.89%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0073% (7.9683% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 98.72
• Gold futures are down 2.64% at $3,913.70
• Silver futures are down 2.30% at $45.70
• Nikkei 225 closed down 0.58% at 50,219.18
• Hang Seng closed down 0.33% at 26,346.14
• FTSE is little changed at 9,659.63
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.21% at 5,699.33
• DJIA closed on Monday up 0.71% at 47,544.59
• S&P 500 closed up 1.23% at 6,875.16
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.86% at 23,637.46
• S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.25% at 30,275.76
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.08% at 2,954.34
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 2.5 bps at 3.972%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,907.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 25,972.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are unchanged at 47,725.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.77% (unchanged)
• Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03593 (-0.50%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,124 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $49.23
• Total Fees: 2.82 BTC / $324,940
• CME Futures Open Interest: 146,960 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 27.2 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.67%

Technical Analysis

• After retracing to the weekly order block from its all-time highs, PUMP is now showing strong momentum as it looks to break through the weekly downward resistance.
• On the daily timeframe, the token has already flipped its downtrend and is trading above all major exponential moving-average levels at $0.00495. The yearly open at $0.006 stands as the next significant resistance level, which could define the next leg of the move if reclaimed.
  

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Monday at $361.43 (+1.97%), -0.57% at $318.51 in pre-market
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $143.29 (+0.87%), -0.2% at $143.01
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $40.55 (+1.83%), +2.98% at $39.75
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $56.31 (+3.85%), unchanged in pre-market
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.56 (+0.1%), -0.46% at $19.47
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $23 (+7.38%), -0.27% at $18.94
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.87 (+2.74%), +1.26% at $20.12
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $20.2 (+4.31%), -1.36% at $16.63
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $60.84 (+2.03%), unchanged in pre-market
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $26.02 (+2.32%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $295.63 (+2.27%), -0.59% at $293.89
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $31.44 (+31.22%), -1.08% at $31.10
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $14.31 (+2.8%), -0.49% at $14.24
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $4.94 (+0.61%), +2.33% at $5.05
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $2.09 (+7.73%), +0-96% at $2.11

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: $149.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $62.1 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.36 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: $133.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $14.51 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.72 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

• Metaplanet Initiates 13% Share Buyback Program With $500M Credit Facility (CoinDesk): The company plans to repurchase up to 150 million shares in the year starting Wednesday, when the stock trades below the NAV implied by bitcoin holdings, to raise BTC per share.
• British Crypto Company KR1 Plans LSE Debut as UK Warms to Industry (Financial Times): Uplisting from Aquis to the London Stock Exchange’s main market in November expands investor access and follows the recent lifting of the ban on crypto ETPs for retail investors.
• A New Tech Platform Takes Aim at Crypto’s Self-Destruct Button (Bloomberg): Bron Labs’ self-custody wallet adds two-contact recovery with a 48-hour delay plus biometrics and programmable transfer limits to reduce risks from forgotten seed phrases and from device loss or theft.