Bitcoin price today: about $80,870 at 05:51 UTC on Wednesday 28 October, up 1.22% over 24 hours, according to Coindaro’s market feed, with the Federal Reserve due to announce its rate decision at 18:00 UTC. The night was quiet on price and busy underneath it. Bitcoin pushed through $81,000 twice on Binance’s BTCUSDT perpetual, at 21:00 UTC on Tuesday and again at 03:00 UTC, and fell back both times. Meanwhile the share of Binance accounts betting on a rise dropped to 66.41%, from 70.58% on Tuesday morning, and the funding rate longs pay roughly halved.
That is the reverse of what we reported 24 hours ago, when Binance traders were piling into longs before the Fed. The price is higher now and the crowd is smaller. Zcash’s ZEC was the strongest of the large coins overnight, up 8% to about $1,320 according to CoinDesk’s Asian morning report, on the day the network turns 10.
A $700 night range, and $81,000 still not held
Between 19:40 UTC on Tuesday, when our US session report closed its data, and 05:57 UTC on Wednesday, the Binance perpetual traded from $80,577.00 to $81,270.60. That is a range of about $700, less than 1%.
The high came first. The 21:00 UTC candle on Tuesday opened at $80,751.20, reached $81,270.60 and closed at $80,874.60, with 9,781 BTC changing hands, three times the 3,205 BTC of the 19:00 UTC hour and the busiest hour of the night. On Coinbase the same hour ran from $80,530.32 to $81,182.00. Robinhood’s earnings call was scheduled for that hour, but no source we read links the spike to it, and we have no explanation for it.
The low followed in the 01:00 UTC hour, at $80,577.00 on Binance and $80,493.55 on Coinbase. The second attempt at $81,000 came in the 03:00 UTC hour: $81,199.90 on Binance, $81,110.26 on Coinbase, and a Coinbase hourly close of $81,038.15. By 05:57 UTC the Binance mark price was back at $80,881.72.
Coinbase’s public BTC-USD data puts Tuesday’s UTC daily candle at $80,008.79 to $80,799.51, a gain of 1.0%, with a low of $79,365.93. The last trade there was $80,791.92 at 05:57 UTC. Volume during the Asian hours was thin: between 60 and 201 BTC in each full hour since midnight UTC, against 458 BTC in Tuesday’s 15:00 UTC hour.
CoinDesk put bitcoin up nearly 2% on its own clock and noted that a daily close above $82,500 could show the recovery gaining momentum. That level is about $1,630 above the 05:51 UTC price.
Ether traded at $2,351 at 05:51 UTC (+1.59% in 24 hours), Solana at $101.8 (+1.72%), XRP at $1.33 (+1.86%) and BNB at $744.3 (+0.87%), according to Coindaro’s feed. The total market value of $2.73 trillion was down 1.17% over 24 hours at 05:43 UTC, as small tokens fell harder than the large ones. The Fear and Greed index read 51, Neutral, up from 48 on Tuesday.
Binance positioning: longs thin out while the price rises
Open interest, the number of BTCUSDT perpetual contracts still open, peaked at 98,157 BTC (about $7.84 billion) in the four-hour reading stamped 12:00 UTC on Tuesday. It then fell for three readings in a row, to 94,792 BTC ($7.67 billion) at the reading stamped 00:00 UTC on Wednesday, before recovering to 96,026 BTC at 04:00 UTC. The live figure was 96,078.30 BTC at 05:57 UTC, about 1% below the 97,140 BTC we reported on Tuesday at 06:00 UTC.
The account ratio moved further. Binance’s share of accounts holding a long position was 70.58% at the 08:00 UTC reading on Tuesday, the highest of the last eight four-hour readings. It slid at each reading after that and stood at 66.41% at 04:00 UTC on Wednesday, a long-to-short ratio of 1.977 against a peak of 2.399. The ratio counts accounts, not money, and covers one exchange.
Funding confirms the cooling. The rate that longs pay shorts every eight hours to keep a perpetual futures contract close to spot settled at 0.0100% on Tuesday at 16:00 UTC, Binance’s default level, and at 0.005373% at 00:00 UTC on Wednesday. Binance’s estimate for the 08:00 UTC settlement was 0.005725% at 05:57 UTC.
| Reading | Tuesday | Wednesday | Time and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| BTCUSDT open interest | 98,157 BTC (peak) | 96,078.30 BTC | 27 Oct 12:00 stamp; 28 Oct 05:57 UTC, Binance |
| Accounts long | 70.58% (peak) | 66.41% | 27 Oct 08:00 and 28 Oct 04:00 stamps, Binance |
| Funding rate per 8 hours | 0.0100% | 0.005373% | settled 27 Oct 16:00 and 28 Oct 00:00 UTC, Binance |
| Night range, BTCUSDT | from $80,577.00 | to $81,270.60 | 27 Oct 19:40 to 28 Oct 05:57 UTC, Binance |
| Bitcoin, Coindaro feed | $79,640 | about $80,870 | 27 Oct 06:27 and 28 Oct 05:51 UTC |
Our reading, and it is only that: when the price rises about 1% while the share of long accounts falls four points and funding halves, the rise is more likely to come from shorts closing or from spot buying than from fresh leveraged bets. We could not obtain liquidation totals for the night, so we cannot say how much of the move was forced.
ZEC leads the majors as Zcash turns 10
CoinDesk reported ZEC up 8% to about $1,320 in its 04:15 UTC report, back above $1,300 after Monday’s selloff. HYPE, Hyperliquid’s token, was up nearly 5% to about $81 on the same page. Coindaro’s own feed agrees: ZEC at $1,312.22 at 05:51 UTC, up 7.33% over 24 hours, and HYPE at $81.29, up 4.90%.
Zcash turns 10 on 28 October 2026, Bitcoin.com News reported overnight, with Grayscale pointing to its development fund. Miners receive 80% of each block reward; the other 20% funds development, split between Zcash Community Grants (8%) and a coinholder-controlled mechanism (12%).
That 8% is the subject of a live fight. Co-founder Sean Bowe has drafted a proposal to stop the Zcash Community Grants stream and send it to a Network Sustainability Mechanism, where the ZEC would be held back rather than spent, as we detailed in our report on the plan to end the grants’ 8% cut. The existing treasury, the 12% share, miner rewards and the maximum supply would not change.
The protocol keeps moving too. The next scheduled step is NU7, set for block 3,543,405 in early November, with 25-second blocks and a Sprout freeze. No source we read ties Wednesday’s 8% move to the anniversary, the funding debate or the upgrade.
Galaxy says the bear market ended in June. That is a view, not a fact
CoinDesk quoted Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy: “We think the bear market ended in June and that bitcoin is in the accumulation phase that has preceded every prior advance.” Thorn places the bottom in June, below $58,000.
The research, sent to clients on 22 October according to Bitcoin.com News, cites bitcoin regaining its 50-week average in September and 87,000 BTC added by US spot ETFs since the June low. Galaxy says a weekly close below that average without a recovery within a month would prove it wrong. It is a trading firm with a stake in the market it describes.
What to watch in the 18:00 UTC statement
The Federal Open Market Committee ends its two-day meeting with a statement at 2:00 p.m. ET, 18:00 UTC, and a press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET, 18:30 UTC, according to the Federal Reserve’s October calendar. The Chair gives the press conference, and the Board’s website lists Kevin Warsh as Chairman. The target range is 3.75% to 4.00% after the 16 September hike, and no Summary of Economic Projections is scheduled for this meeting. The meeting details are on our FOMC October 2026 event page.
Markets expect no change today. CME FedWatch data, as quoted by FXStreet at 01:46 GMT, gave about 92.8% for a hold in October and 84.4% for a hike at the 8-9 December meeting. Coindaro reported about 80% for December on Tuesday, from CoinCentral, and 72.1% on 25 October, from CryptoSlate. The aggregators differ, but the direction is clear: the December hike looks more firmly priced than at the weekend. That is a market price, not a Fed decision.
So the event is the guidance more than the rate. “The Fed doesn’t need to hike today to move markets,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, said in a later FXStreet report. Bank of America, also quoted there, sees hawkish messaging as broadly neutral for the dollar and a dovish hold as the risk of a sharp fall in it.
The dollar index was near 102.40 in the early European session, according to FXStreet at 05:16 GMT, from 102.28 on Tuesday at 17:46 UTC. The euro is on course to be October’s weakest developed-market currency against the dollar, down 1.70%, which makes dollar-priced assets dearer for buyers in euros. We could not obtain fresh Treasury yields overnight; Tuesday’s figure, on CNBC’s quotes at 17:46 UTC, put the 10-year yield at 4.991%.
ETF flows: 26 October is the last figure
US spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $110.3 million on Monday 26 October, all of it through BlackRock’s IBIT, according to the TFTC flow table. It followed outflows of $635.5 million on 22 October and $137.9 million on 23 October. Over the 18 trading days of October to 26 October, the table sums to a net outflow of $202.1 million.
Figures for Tuesday 27 October were not yet available when we wrote this at 06:40 UTC. The funds report after the US close, and the sources we could open had not published them.
Also overnight
Datavault AI’s shares fell about 50% on Tuesday after the bitcoin treasury company said it has been unable to withdraw its bitcoin from the Biconomy exchange since June. Bithumb said intruders reached an internal system for employees, which it says is separate from trading. Coinbase said contact details of a small subset of customers were exposed at its analytics vendor Amplitude, and that funds are safe. Robinhood reported third-quarter crypto transaction revenue of $120 million, down 55% from a year earlier. Coindaro covers each of these separately this morning.
What would change the picture tonight
A statement or press conference that sounds less committed to a December hike than the 84.4% priced in is the scenario with room to move prices, by Bank of America’s reasoning, because a hawkish hold is largely expected. A daily close above $82,500, the level CoinDesk flagged, would take bitcoin out of the box it has traded in since 23 October. A fall back under $80,000, the support Bitcoin Magazine named on Tuesday, would undo the rebound since Tuesday’s low.
On positioning, a rebound in the long share toward 70% and funding back at 0.0100% would mean leverage is being rebuilt after the decision. The 27 October ETF figure, due later today, will show whether Monday’s inflow held.
After tonight, the European Central Bank decides on Thursday 29 October and the US midterm elections follow on 3 November.
1 comment