Update, 29 October 2026, 14:35 UTC: the ECB kept its three key rates unchanged at 13:15 UTC (deposit facility 2.50%, main refinancing 2.65%, marginal lending 2.90%). Bitcoin traded near $80,330 at 14:19 UTC, down 0.18% over 24 hours, according to Coindaro’s market data. The sections below were written before the decision.
The bitcoin price today, Thursday 29 October, stood near $80,110 at 11:46 UTC, down 1.45% over 24 hours, after slipping under $80,000 during the Asian night to a low of about $79,600 on Bitstamp, according to Journal du Coin. The fall came the morning after the Federal Reserve held rates with two votes for a hike, and as tech shares sold off behind Alphabet and Samsung. CoinDesk counted $337.4 million of crypto positions liquidated over 24 hours.
Spot buyers did not join the selling. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $137 million on Wednesday, their third straight day of inflows, according to Farside Investors data cited by CoinDesk and SoSoValue data cited by Cointelegraph. The European Central Bank publishes its rate decision at 13:15 UTC, and US growth and spending figures land at 12:30 UTC.
Ether was at $2,324 at 11:46 UTC (down 1.62% in 24 hours), solana at $100.4 (down 2.27%) and XRP at $1.29 (down 2.46%). The whole crypto market was worth about $2.68 trillion, bitcoin’s share was 60.0%, and the Fear & Greed index read 51, in neutral territory.
The Fed meeting itself, and bitcoin’s first reaction near $81,000 on Wednesday evening, is in our report on the Fed’s 10-2 hold and the two votes for a hike. This piece picks up where that one stopped: the Asian night and the European morning of 29 October.
Bitcoin price today: from $81,700 to $79,600 in one night
The overnight path, as reconstructed by Journal du Coin in a piece published at 06:51 UTC, ran like this. Bitcoin was above $81,700 on Wednesday evening. It drifted to about $79,800 during the Asian session and touched roughly $79,600 on Bitstamp. By about 05:00 UTC it was back over $80,100, and at 06:30 UTC it sat near $80,023.
CoinDesk, writing at 11:11 UTC, had bitcoin down 1.4% since midnight UTC at about $80,100 after the dip to $79,600, with ether near $2,325. Cointelegraph, using CoinGecko, quoted $79,848 without giving a time.
None of this is a breakout in either direction. Bitcoin has traded around $80,000 since Sunday 25 October, losing and regaining the level several times. On Monday 26 October it was at $79,300 at the US open and back at $80,000 by the evening; on Wednesday morning it was near $80,870 in Asia. Thursday’s 1.4% drop sits inside a weekly range of roughly $79,300 to $81,700.
| Asset | Price at 11:46 UTC | 24h change | 7-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | about $80,110 | -1.45% | -2.06% |
| Ether (ETH) | $2,324 | -1.62% | -3.36% |
| Solana (SOL) | $100.4 | -2.27% | -3.59% |
| XRP | $1.29 | -2.46% | -2.69% |
| BNB | $738.7 | -2.71% | +0.92% |
Prices from Coindaro’s market snapshot of 29 October 2026, 11:46 UTC. Total crypto market value at that time: about $2.68 trillion; trading volume over 24 hours: $73.5 billion.
The Fed’s two hike votes still weigh a day later
The Fed’s statement of 28 October kept the federal funds target range at 3-3/4 to 4 percent. The vote was 10-2: Governors Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack dissented because they preferred a quarter-point increase. The statement repeated that “Inflation remains elevated.” Chair Kevin Warsh declined to signal what comes in December, CoinDesk reported.
That leaves the next meeting open. Journal du Coin, citing the CME FedWatch tool, put the probability of a hike at the 8-9 December meeting at 83% on Thursday morning; Coindaro has not checked that figure on CME itself. The date, the dot plot and what is at stake are on our page for the 8-9 December FOMC meeting.
Outlets have tied the overnight drop to the Fed. The link is plausible but not proven. Bitcoin had already been stuck near $80,000 for four days, and Asian and US tech stocks fell hard over the same hours.
Alphabet and Samsung drag tech, and AI tokens follow
Alphabet was the first trigger. Its shares were down roughly 10% before the US open after its earnings call, CoinDesk reported, while open interest in GOOGL perpetual futures rose 77% as the price fell, a sign that traders were adding positions into the drop rather than leaving.
The quarter’s numbers, as given by Journal du Coin, were revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25% on a year earlier but slightly below the $128.2 billion expected, adjusted earnings per share of $2.67 against $3.02 expected, and capital spending more than doubled to $51.4 billion in the quarter. Coindaro has not seen Alphabet’s own release, so these figures are as reported by that outlet.
Samsung Electronics was the second. Its shares fell even though the company reported a record quarterly profit, CoinDesk said. CoinDesk put the drop at 4%, with the Kospi down 1.2% and Nasdaq-100 futures down 1.1%. Journal du Coin reported larger moves: Samsung down more than 5%, the Kospi off more than 2% and Nasdaq futures down 1.4%. According to Journal du Coin, chip operating profit rose about fifteenfold on the year but came in about 2% under consensus. The two outlets measured at different times, which may explain the gap.
Crypto’s AI names took the hit. CoinDesk listed NEAR down 7.8%, TAO down 3.1%, RAY down 8.9%, JTO down 6.8%, ENA down 6% and JASMY down 10%, the worst performer in the CoinDesk 100. Our own snapshot at 11:46 UTC still had JASMY among the biggest losers, down 10.51% over 24 hours. CoinDesk’s memecoin index lost 3.4%, TRX was one of the few gainers at +0.5%, and CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season index slipped to 54 out of 100 from 60 on Wednesday.
$337 million of liquidations, mostly longs
Leveraged traders paid for the night. CoinDesk reported 24-hour liquidations up 84% to $337.4 million at 11:11 UTC, of which $72.5 million on bitcoin and $71.6 million on ether. Futures volume rose 21.8% to $198.8 billion while open interest fell 1.9%, which fits positions being closed rather than opened. Funding rates on bitcoin and ether stayed positive but were lower than the day before, CoinDesk said: longs still pay shorts, just less.
Citing CoinGlass, Journal du Coin counted $356 million of liquidations over 24 hours at the moment bitcoin broke under $80,000, $205 million of it on long positions. By 06:30 UTC the total had reached $367 million, with $211 million of longs. The two outlets measured over different windows, hence the gap between $337 million and $367 million. In both counts, long positions bought with borrowed money made up most of the losses.
A liquidation is the forced closing of a leveraged position when the trader’s collateral no longer covers the loss; the mechanics, and why they come in clusters, are in our glossary entry on liquidation.
Spot bitcoin ETFs took in $137 million for a third straight day
While derivatives traders were being closed out, the slower money kept buying. US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $137 million of net inflows on Wednesday 28 October, CoinDesk reported from Farside Investors data, the third day in a row of inflows and $423.7 million over the three sessions. Cointelegraph, using SoSoValue, gave the same $137 million and about $424 million over three days. Coindaro could not open Farside’s own table, so the per-fund split for Wednesday is not confirmed here.
Tuesday’s inflow was $176 million, Journal du Coin reported, of which $152 million went to BlackRock’s IBIT and $24.5 million to Fidelity’s FBTC. According to Cointelegraph, October as a whole turned positive at $111 million with two sessions left, after nearly $774 million left the funds over the last two sessions of the previous week.
Ether funds did not follow. US spot ether ETFs lost $21 million on Wednesday and $1.35 billion over October, Cointelegraph said, citing SoSoValue.
There is a catch for ETF holders. Glassnode data cited by CoinDesk puts their average purchase price near $81,500, almost 2% above the market. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart estimated about $81,700 on 21 September, according to Journal du Coin. The two estimates were made on different dates. Either way, at $80,110 the average ETF holder is slightly under water, and this week’s buyers are paying less than those already in.
“With limited new direction from the Fed, Bitcoin’s near-term performance may depend more heavily on Treasury yields, dollar movements and broader risk sentiment,” Bitget analyst Lewis Huang told Cointelegraph.
Strategy reports tonight with a thinner cushion
Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, publishes its third-quarter results after the US close on Thursday, with a webinar at 5:00 p.m. ET (21:00 UTC), according to the company’s 8 October announcement. CoinDesk’s live coverage set out what is at stake.
The company held 848,517 BTC as of its 26 October SEC filing, bought at an average of $75,446 each, about $64 billion in all. At roughly $80,000 the stack is worth about $68 billion, a paper gain near $4 billion, with bitcoin only about 6% above Strategy’s cost. Its 5 October filing valued the coins at about $83,500 each at the end of September, so the fourth quarter so far shows a paper loss of roughly $3 billion, by CoinDesk’s estimate.
CoinDesk also flagged a tax item. Strategy wrote off a $4.12 billion tax asset in June and reversed it in the third quarter, adding about $4 billion to profit. On CoinDesk’s reading, not the company’s, that credit starts to unwind below $75,446 and is fully reversed near $58,500.
Strategy bought no bitcoin in the week to 25 October and used the money to buy back its STRC preferred shares, as covered in our report on Strategy’s $205 million STRC buyback. Neither CoinDesk nor any other source we read gave a current mNAV, the ratio of the company’s market value to its bitcoin, so we do not state one.
$11 billion of options expire on Friday
About $11 billion of bitcoin options expire on Deribit on Friday 30 October, roughly a third of the platform’s open positions, according to Journal du Coin. The figures below come from that single outlet.
It quoted Adam Hames of Tesseract Group as saying about 70% of the expiring contracts’ gamma sits between $75,000 and $82,000, and that below $80,000 puts outnumber calls by more than two to one. The outlet itself put the “max pain” level near $78,000 and saw the next upside test in a daily close above $82,500. Gamma measures how fast option dealers’ hedges change with the price: when much of it is packed into a range, dealers’ hedging can keep the price inside that range until expiry.
CoinDesk added that a $82,500 bitcoin call expiring on 30 October was among the most traded contracts on Deribit, and that five of the six highest-volume ether options were puts, with strikes from $2,280 down to $1,500.
Galaxy Research gave a longer view. In a note of 27 October cited by Journal du Coin, Alex Thorn dated the end of the bear market to June and put the 50-week moving average at $76,540; a weekly close below it, not recovered within the month, would invalidate that call.
ECB decision due at 13:15 UTC, US data at 12:30 UTC
The European Central Bank’s Governing Council publishes its decision at 13:15 UTC (14:15 in Paris and Rome), followed by the press conference at 13:45 UTC. At the time of writing the decision had not been released. Going in, the deposit facility rate is 2.50%, the main refinancing rate 2.65% and the marginal lending rate 2.90%, in force since 16 September, according to the ECB’s table of key interest rates.
The ECB has raised rates twice this year, in June and September, after cutting through the first half of 2025. Euro-area inflation was 3.8% in September, according to Eurostat, driven by energy. The background, the September vote and what economists expected are on our page on the ECB decision of 29 October. For readers in France and Italy, the decision sets the cost of euro loans and the return on euro cash, the money that competes with crypto for savings.
In the US, the Bureau of Economic Analysis schedule lists two releases at 8:30 a.m. ET (12:30 UTC) on Thursday: the advance estimate of third-quarter GDP and personal income and outlays for September, the report that carries the PCE price index, which CoinDesk called the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge.
The dates after today
Friday 30 October brings the Deribit options expiry. The US midterm elections follow on Tuesday 3 November; Journal du Coin cited a Bloomberg Markets Pulse survey with a year-end median bitcoin forecast of $90,800 if Republicans hold Congress and $76,450 if Democrats take both chambers. Those are survey answers, not Coindaro forecasts.
Eurostat’s flash estimate of October inflation is scheduled for 4 November. The Fed meets again on 8-9 December and the ECB on 16-17 December. Before any of that, Strategy’s numbers come out at 21:00 UTC tonight.