Crypto
Bitcoin Closed the Week at $82,116, Down 2%, Then Climbed to $82,882 as Asian Stocks Recovered
Bitcoin's weekly candle closed at $82,116 on Sunday, October 18, 1.98% below the previous week's $83,773, after a Sunday evening dip to $80,684. It rose through the Asian session on Monday to a high of $82,882 at 04:00 UTC, up 2.7% from that low, as the Kospi reversed its opening loss and Nasdaq futures gained 1.3%. Ether was $2,426 and Solana $105.
The week in bitcoin ended quietly and the new one started with a bid. On Binance's USDT pair the weekly candle, which runs from Monday to Sunday, closed at $82,116 on October 18, down 1.98% from the $83,773 at which the previous week ended. It was the second weekly decline in a row, and it hid a wide range: a high of $84,352 on Monday, October 12, a low of $79,800 on Thursday in the hour after the CPI report, and a last-day swing from $82,295 in the Sunday morning Asian session to $80,684 at 20:00 UTC, when European and US traders were selling the same tokens they had bought on Saturday.
That Sunday evening low was bought within the hour. The 20:00 UTC candle, which touched $80,684, closed at $80,963; the 22:00 and 23:00 hours rose to $81,764 and $82,116 on $65 million and $54 million of spot volume, the two busiest hours of the day, and the climb continued through the Asian morning. Bitcoin was $82,302 at 01:00 UTC on Monday, $82,719 at 03:00 and reached $82,882 in the 04:00 hour, 2.7% above the Sunday low and the highest since Friday's $82,940. At 05:00 UTC it was $82,657, up 1.0% over 24 hours. Sunday's spot volume on the pair was $823 million, against $574 million on Saturday.
The timing matches equities rather than anything in crypto. Bitcoin's Monday climb coincided with the Kospi's reversal from a 3.2% opening loss to a gain, Nasdaq 100 futures rising 1.3% from Friday's settlement and China's third-quarter GDP beating forecasts; the Sunday evening dip coincided with nothing except the thin liquidity of a weekend US evening. Gold was steady near $4,200 and the dollar index was just below 102. The Fed is in its pre-meeting blackout, so the macro calendar this week is earnings: Netflix on Tuesday, Tesla and Meta on Wednesday.
Ether and Solana followed with less conviction. Ether fell to a Sunday low of $2,329, its lowest since Thursday, and closed the day at $2,410, down 5.0% on the week from $2,537; it was $2,426 at 05:00 UTC on Monday. Solana's Sunday low was $100.43, the third time in a week it has tested the $100 level without closing below it, and it recovered to $105.47 on Monday, up 1.6% over 24 hours, with the Alpenglow upgrade due on Wednesday. XRP rose 1.2% to $1.31 and BNB 1.0% to $728. Monero was the largest gainer among the top 100 on Sunday at about 5%, and Starknet the largest loser at 12%, according to IT Times.
Two weekly declines of 2% and 5% are not a trend break, and the structure of the past month is unchanged: the dips to $79,800 on Thursday and $80,684 on Sunday were both bought within two hours, $84,000 to $84,350 was sold four times in a week, and the market is waiting for something outside crypto to pick a direction. The US spot ETFs saw $82 million of net outflows last week, small against $7.5 billion of trading. For now, the thing bitcoin is tracking is the Nasdaq futures screen, and on Monday morning that screen was green.