18.3% for payment growth, just 6.9% for cheap tokens
Summary: While BTC traded sideways for two months, DeFi tokens with payment growth above 25% had a median return of 18.3%, compared with just 6.9% for the cheaper group. Valuation multiples did not explain returns. From August 22 to October 20, BTC’s daily closing price stayed between $75,600 and $86,600. Over two months, it gained 5.6% in total. ETH fell 2.7% over the same period. Over the same period, 14 of the 19 DeFi tokens that pay revenue to holders outperformed BTC. The median return was +12.9%, more than twice BTC’s. Raydium rose 178%. But what’s really worth examining isn’t which tokens rose, but what explains the gains and losses. Split the 19 tokens into two groups
Bitcoin Retests $81,000 as ETF Cost Basis Comes Under Threat
Summary: Glassnode says Bitcoin is retesting the $81,000 cost basis for ETF holdings. The level capped a rally in May before a sharp decline; a decisive break below it could lead to a drop toward $70,000. On October 22, Glassnode noted that Bitcoin is once again testing the ETF holdings cost basis at around $81,000. This level previously capped Bitcoin’s rally in May, after which the market fell sharply. Last week, the price briefly dipped below it before quickly recovering. A price level being tested repeatedly is nothing unusual. What makes $81,000 special is that it is not a technical support or resistance level, but a line drawn from the actual purchase costs.
On-chain monitoring shows that whale address 0x0DfB...ECbf has been buying tokens steadily over the past 24 hours, purchasing approximately $7.22 million worth across multiple sectors.
The largest purchases were: 378,129 LIT, worth approximately $1.4 million; 6.61 million ENA, worth approximately $1.34 million; 3 million ONDO, worth approximately $1.34 million.
Other purchases included: 1.154 million AERO, worth approximately $948,000; 241.8 ETH, worth approximately $591,000; 2,944 QNT, worth approximately $589,000; 61,252 UNI, worth approximately $443,000; 1,387 TAO, worth approximately $368,000; 43 billion PEPE, worth approximately $195,000.
In short, this address put the most money into LIT, ENA, and ONDO over the past day, while also diversifying into AERO, ETH, QNT, UNI, TAO, and PEPE. Overall, it was a broad-based round of accumulation.
A whale/institution has been steadily rotating its BTC holdings into ETH: over the past day, it sold another 246.2 $BTC (about $20.36 million), then bought 10,636 $ETH .
In the 11 days since the 11th, the institution has sold a total of 1,847.3 #BTC , receiving about 153 million USDC, which it used to buy ETH—building a position of 63,731 #ETH at an average purchase price of about $2,400.
In short, this is a position rotation spanning several days: reducing BTC holdings on one side while systematically shifting funds into ETH on the other.
On-chain monitoring shows that Solana whale address HoYd...P7Rb has made notable moves over the past 24 hours: it deposited a total of about 240,000 SOL to exchanges including Binance, worth approximately $25.3 million based on reported figures. Using that amount for a rough calculation, the average price per SOL is about $105.4.
On-chain, large amounts of SOL moving from self-custody wallets to exchanges are usually interpreted by the market as a potential sell-pressure signal, since assets can be placed directly on the market once they reach an exchange. However, depositing funds on an exchange does not mean they have actually been sold. It remains to be seen whether the address continues making deposits, whether corresponding sell orders appear on exchanges, and whether the SOL is transferred in batches or all at once.
The whale’s activity is worth watching for several reasons: 1. Significant scale: 240,000 SOL, worth about $25.3 million, is a whale-sized move that could affect market sentiment; 2. Exchange-bound transfers: Moving funds from an on-chain wallet to platforms such as Binance naturally suggests possible plans to cash out; 3. Concentrated timing within 24 hours: Large deposits over a short period can lead the market to speculate that a sale is being prepared; 4. Potential impact on sentiment around SOL: Traders often view deposits from whale addresses as an early signal of a possible increase in supply.
In short, over the past day, HoYd...P7Rb sent about 240,000 SOL worth $25.3 million—#sol —to exchanges including Binance, possibly in preparation for a sale. For now, only the on-chain deposit can be confirmed. Whether the SOL is actually sold, and how much, will depend on subsequent exchange flows and activity from the address.
BTC Is Above $80,000—but the Real Test Is Just Beginning
After $BTC returned to around $82,800, two sharply opposing views re-emerged: one side believes a new bull market has begun, while the other is still waiting for a deeper pullback. When price trends, cost basis, and capital flows are considered together, the answer is not so extreme. BTC is currently closer to a “recovery validation phase”: the long-term structure has recovered, but the sustained inflows needed to drive a major rally have yet to materialize. In other words, the market has moved beyond a typical bear-market bottom, but has yet to confirm a full-fledged bull-market expansion. ━━━━━━━━━━
On-chain data shows that address 0xb15b...dbae opened a short position of 13,830 #ETH using maximum leverage, with a notional value of approximately $32.72 million. The position was eventually fully liquidated, resulting in a loss of about $1.11 million over two days.
The sequence of events was fairly typical:
The address opened a short position when ETH was priced at $2,366; A few hours later, ETH rebounded to $2,409, and 2,765 ETH worth approximately $6.66 million was liquidated first; Rather than cut its losses, the address added to its short position when ETH pulled back to $2,387; As ETH rebounded further, the remaining short position was also fully liquidated.
In the end, the address was left with only about $140,000 of its approximately $1.25 million in capital—meaning it lost nearly all of it by adding to its short position against the market trend.
Summary: U.S. Bitcoin ETFs saw $527 million in net inflows in a single day. IBIT alone brought in $665 million, while FBTC and GBTC continued to see outflows. On October 19, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $527 million in net inflows, their highest single-day total since September 22. But a closer look at the breakdown shows that nearly all of the money came from just one place. BlackRock’s IBIT saw $665 million in net inflows in a single day, equivalent to approximately 8,130 BTC, making it the only Bitcoin ETF to record net inflows that day. Fidelity’s FBTC saw $83.63 million in net outflows, while Grayscale’s GBTC saw $54.93 million in net outflows. The remaining funds had zero net flows that day. IBIT’s inflows alone exceeded the total for the entire group.
Bitcoin tops paper returns, but JPMorgan doesn’t allocate
Summary: JPMorgan’s 2027 LTCMA forecasts a 10% 10-year compound return for Bitcoin, the highest of any asset, yet Bitcoin is absent from the sample portfolio allocations. On October 19, JPMorgan Asset Management released the 31st edition of its Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions (2027 LTCMA), including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecasts for the first time. The figures are straightforward: Bitcoin’s baseline annualized compound return over the next 10 to 15 years is 10.0%, higher than the 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, the 7.5% for global equities, the 5.5% for gold, and the 7.0% for a traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio. In this long-term forecast covering more than 200 asset classes, Bitcoin ranks first in baseline returns.
Summary: BlackRock files for a third bitcoin ETF, linked to IBIT, that offers downside protection but caps gains; the level of protection is not fixed and principal is not guaranteed. On October 19, BlackRock filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF, with the proposed ticker PBIT. This would be BlackRock’s third bitcoin ETF. The first two were the spot ETF IBIT, launched in January 2024, and the options income ETF BITA, launched this June. The filing describes the product cautiously: it seeks to capture upside returns from IBIT and similar bitcoin exposure while also seeking to provide some degree of downside protection. The key words are “some degree” and “seeks.”
Bitcoin’s bottoming is conditional, with spot demand the missing piece
Summary: Exchange reserves rise to 2.68 million BTC, spot demand turns negative, whale accumulation diverges, and a bottom is possible—but conditional. On October 19, CryptoQuant published its latest analysis. The conclusion upfront: Bitcoin has support, but its recovery is uneven. The three dimensions paint three somewhat different pictures. A slight rise in reserves doesn’t mean anyone is selling. Exchange reserves rose from around 2.67 million BTC in early October to around 2.68 million BTC. This figure needs to be viewed over a longer timeframe—it remains well below January’s level. CryptoQuant made a point of highlighting one thing: a rise in reserves alone does not prove that selling is underway. BTC moving to exchanges may simply reflect a change in custody arrangements, such as a transfer from a self-custody wallet to an institutional custodian, or a move between accounts within an exchange. To determine whether genuine selling pressure is building, it’s necessary to check whether net exchange outflows turn negative as reserves rise, and whether stablecoin balances fall at the same time. Looking at reserves alone can lead you to mistake “moving funds” for “selling.”
Summary: Vitalik says that using precompiles and the EVM for cryptography has hit a throughput bottleneck. EIP-8288 proposes moving verification off the main thread, leaving only a recursive proof on-chain. On October 19, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin continued to outline the EIP-8288 roadmap on X. He cited a specific constraint: even with PeerDAS and blocks-in-blobs, data throughput above around 8 MB/s would begin to face practical pressure. In the context of cryptographic support, this sentence points to a conflict that is drawing near. Ethereum needs to accommodate an ever-growing number of signature schemes and proof systems, but if every form of cryptographic support is crammed on-chain as a precompiled contract or through EVM execution, calldata usage will continue to balloon. 8 MB/s is not some distant theoretical red line; it is a physical limit that main-thread scaling is already running up against.
According to on-chain monitoring, an address that previously bought ETH at an average price of $2,667.77 in September recently transferred its entire holdings to an exchange.
Data shows that the address (0xF4B…496eb) withdrew 1,417.77 ETH from Binance between September 19 and 23, worth approximately $3.78 million. About 8 hours ago, the address deposited all of its ETH back to the exchange, when ETH was priced at approximately $2,364.18.
Based on the previous average purchase price, the price of $ETH is down about 11.38% from its cost basis, representing a price difference of approximately $430,000.
However, depositing funds to an exchange does not necessarily mean they have been sold. It is not yet possible to confirm whether the address has fully liquidated its holdings, and the related losses are still estimates. The situation warrants further observation.
Greeks.live researcher Adam disclosed today's BTC options expiry data:
1. Around 18,000 BTC options expire today, with a notional value of approximately $1.47 billion; 2. The Put/Call Ratio is 1, indicating a relatively balanced market between bulls and bears; 3. The max pain point is $83,000; 4. This expiry represents about 4.5% of total BTC options open interest.
Adam also noted that current implied volatility (IV) is around 35%, suggesting that the market's expectations for future price fluctuations are at an extremely low level, while options buyers remain generally cautious
Summary: The world’s 20 largest AI and semiconductor stocks shed more than $1 trillion this week, as rate-hike expectations, concerns over AI financing, and competition from China converged to create a triple blow. October 16 — According to CNBC, as of Thursday, the world’s 20 largest AI and semiconductor stocks by market capitalization had shed more than $1 trillion in total value. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX), which tracks the chip sector, fell for an eighth consecutive trading day, losing about 12.7% over the period and marking its longest losing streak in 11 years. In U.S. trading on Thursday, Nvidia fell 1.84%, AMD dropped 1.5%, Intel slid about 2.8%, and Dell Technologies plunged 6.8%. Losses were even steeper in Asian markets: SK Hynix plunged more than 10% in a single day, Samsung Electronics fell 8.73%, Japan’s SoftBank Group dropped 7.9%, and semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest plunged nearly 14%.
Summary: Coin Metrics studied 150 meme coins: the median peaked in 17.2 days and fell 95% in 370 days; only 3% returned to their highs. AI and prediction markets are drawing attention away. Meme coin projects typically reach their all-time highs 17.2 days after their first trade, with a quarter peaking within 1.6 days. The median time to fall from the peak to a 95% price drop is 370 days, and only 3% of projects return to their all-time highs. These figures come from a report titled “State of the Network,” published by Victor Ramirez, a senior data scientist at Coin Metrics. The study used Kaplan–Meier survival analysis—a statistical tool originally used in clinical trials to estimate median survival time—to model the full lifecycles of 150 meme coins. The sample consisted of tokens launched after BONK went live in December 2023, when the Solana meme coin era took off in earnest. Tokens also had to have market data available on at least one centralized exchange.
CPI Comes in Hot, Raising Rate-Hike Uncertainty and Election Risks
Summary: U.S. CPI rose 3.7% year over year in September, above expectations. The probability of a rate hike in October is just 23%, as inflation-related political pressure builds ahead of the midterm elections. On October 14, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that CPI rose 3.7% year over year in September, above the expected 3.6% and August’s 3.4%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 2.6% year over year, also above the expected 2.5% and marking its highest level since June. After the data was released, Treasury yields surged, the U.S. dollar strengthened, and global risk assets broadly fell. All three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower: the Dow fell 0.09%, the S&P 500 dropped 1.11%, and the Nasdaq slid 1.88%. South Korea’s benchmark index plunged 6% at the open, hitting its lowest level since July 31, while SK Hynix fell more than 7%. Bitcoin dropped below $82,000, touching a low of $80,200, down 3% over 24 hours.
🚨 Amid the brutal cascade of market sell-offs, whale Machi Big Brother’s wallet (0x020c...5872) was forced to frantically close positions, selling at a loss all the way down in a desperate bid to survive and avoid catastrophic liquidation!
📉 The brutal part is that his account has now been completely plundered by the bears, with funds evaporating in an instant and its value shrinking to a mere $129,000! The once-mighty whale may now be facing the dire prospect of running out of ammunition!
On-chain monitoring shows that an Ethereum OG is selling. Address 0x8ACF...aA93 bought ETH nine years ago for just $14 and is now taking profits: about 50 minutes ago, they deposited 6,369 ETH, worth approximately $15.95 million, to an exchange. In other words, this early investor with a low cost basis is moving their holdings to an exchange—a signal the market usually interprets as preparation to sell.
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