Bitcoin (BTC) Breaks Down Ahead of October Close
Bitcoin (BTC) retreated below $59,000 only a week after setting an all-time record above $67,000. On Thursday, BTC sank to $58,802.17, losing nearly 4% of its price in the past day. Later, BTC quickly recovered to $59,199.58, attempting to compensate for last week’s downward price pressure.
The Bitcoin fear and greed sentiment shifted to 66 points, still signaling greed, but away from the peak levels during record price action. BTC leverage is growing, with open interest recovering in the past month. As October wraps up, BTC is once again under scrutiny on its potential to achieve new highs by the end of the year.
Alongside BTC, Ethereum (ETH) also slid, sinking under the $4,000 tier. Major coins took a step back, while Shiba Inu (SHIB) remained one of the few assets to shine out. SHIB managed to expand and become the eighth largest asset by market capitalization, taking over the position of Dogecoin (DOGE).
BTC Pressured Ahead of October Options Expiry
BTC prices are getting pressured under $60,000 ahead of the end of October options expiry. On October 29, $3.2B in Bitcoin options are set to expire, potentially promising higher returns to bulls if the price is pushed above the $60,000 limit.
Even at $58,000, BTC is still lucrative for bullish traders. The options expiry may be set to make put options for bears worthless, as they are set around prices of $55,000.
In a worst-case scenario, BTC may dip to $52,000, where there are also bearish put options. The coming days will show if spot markets respond to those bearish attitudes. For BTC, the days after the options expiry at the end of the month are also a time of picking a new direction.
Long-Term Holders Prop Up BTC
Long-term holders remain an important factor for BTC stability. Over the past months, significant coin additions to large wallets increased BTC scarcity on exchanges.
Glassnode data show the accumulation trend remains clear, though there is some spending and profit-taking at higher prices.
Only a fraction of BTC was spent with some form of realized gains above the $60,000 level.
SHIB Continues to Rally Despite Setbacks
The SHIB rally continued later on Wednesday and Thursday, pushing the asset to new highs. SHIB remained volatile, with very short-term fluctuations within hours. Still, the asset managed to achieve a high at $0.00008 and above, only later to lose 11%.
SHIB is up a net 22% on another day, on trading volumes above $42B in the past 24 hours. The meme token was noted by the Morning Crew, for its creation of crypto billionaires in a fraction of the time it took for BTC to produce wealth. SHIB value is now around 0.44% of the entire crypto market capitalization. The value still lags behind DOGE, which commands 1.27% of the crypto market total capitalization.
At this point, it is unknown if all SHIB wallets are active and belong to long-term holders, or they are one of the many burn addresses.
The heightened interest in SHIB also led to significant pressure on Coinbase and Crypto.com as one of the on-ramps for buying the token. However, SHIB has not reached the mainstream popularity of Dogecoin (DOGE), suggesting the meme token may continue to gain mainstream attention.
SHIB remains highly risky and volatile, and can erase 90% of its current value within days, in case of a price crash. Still, the token has shown there is significant hype potential in the cryptocurrency market, even when BTC takes a step back. SHIB remains extremely active, managing to add as much as 15% to its price within hours.
Other Altcoins Displaying Strength
Most large-scale crypto assets are taking a hit in the past day, due to low BTC and ETH prices dragging down some markets. But other tokens managed to decouple and continue with price discovery.
Fantom (FTM) gained more than 11% to $3.32, after setting an all-time high at $3.47. FTM is setting expectations for price discovery, with the potential to reach $10 in the short term and continue to a higher valuation similar to Solana (SOL).
Harmony (ONE) also set another price peak at $3.44 before retreating to $3.28. ONE aims to become another highly active network in the DeFi space. The Harmony protocol, through its Horizon bridge, holds in more than $212M in locked assets, including ETH and Wrapped BTC.
Near Protocol (NEAR) logged an all-time high above $12.30, later retreating to around $11.80. NEAR peaked just days after announcing it set aside $800M in its Global Ecosystem Fund, to encourage building through the protocol.
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