Morning Minute: Bitcoin Gets Spooked as ‘Uptober’ Lets Down
Crypto majors are red, alts are down bad and onchain is facing capitulation. This was not the ‘Uptober’ that was promised…
Uptober has been anything but. BTC is sitting at $83K, down 3.2% on the week. It topped out near $87K early last week, then slid to $81K on Monday, a roughly 7% drawdown, before bouncing modestly.
Sentiment followed price. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell to 56 (neutral), down from 67 a week ago and well off its August peak of 82, the year’s high. That’s essentially back to where we were before the summer rally that had Tom Lee and CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju calling the end of the bear market.
Alts took it worse. Over the last 7 days, SOL is down 11%, HYPE 12%, DOGE 12%, XRP 10% and ETH 8%. Prediction markets have cooled too. Myriad odds of BTC hitting $87.5K in October fell from 55% to 45%, while a dip to $80K is now priced at 56%.
As for the drivers, the common view is that this is a macro problem, not a crypto problem:
Analysts are torn on how to interpret this macro backdrop. Capital.com’s Daniela Hathorn summed it up as investors are still treating Bitcoin as a risk asset, not a geopolitical hedge. CoinShares’ James Butterfill offered the bull counterpoint, stating that if yields are rising on fears about U.S. debt rather than strong growth, BTC starts to look less like a risk asset and more like an alternative to government money.
The next catalyst is U.S. inflation data coming out this Wednesday with CPI. A cool print could pull yields lower and give risk assets room to run. A hot one, with oil at $110, reopens the rate-hike conversation, and neutral could slide toward fear quickly. Until then, expect more chop…
