Bitcoin Recovers to $81,700 as Memecoins Lead Rebound
By @sharedot · · 6 pages
- Finance
- Crypto
- Bitcoin
- Altcoins
Bitcoin steadied near $81,700 after Thursday's tech selloff, with memecoins up 2.9% and Pepe jumping 13% in the altcoin rebound.
What happened: Bitcoin steadies while altcoins bounce harder
Bitcoin recovered from a low near $81,000 to trade around $81,700, a gain of about 0.5% since midnight UTC, while Asian equity markets calmed after Thursday's tech-led rout in which the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6%, its steepest drop since June. Ether added roughly 0.9%.
The rebound was led by smaller tokens: CoinDesk reports the CoinDesk 80 altcoin index gained 1.4% and its memecoin gauge climbed 2.9%, with Pepe jumping 13%. According to CoinDesk, traders are now looking ahead to the Fed's Oct.
27-28 meeting as the next catalyst.
The surprise: Pepe's 14% run has no clear catalyst
The most striking move came from the memecoin sector, where Pepe rose 14% to lead the CD100 — its biggest advance in a month, according to CoinDesk. The Ethereum-based frog token's jump extends gains to 23% over the week and 16% over the month, a run CoinDesk notes came with no obvious catalyst.
It stands apart from peers like floki, bonk and shiba inu, which gained 3.3% to 4.9% today but remain down as much as 16% on the month.
CoinDesk also reports Pepe's 24-hour volume reached roughly $353 million, about 10% higher than a day earlier, while CoinMarketCap's 'Altcoin Season' indicator rose to 58/100 from Monday's 54.
The evidence: mixed flows and cooling derivatives
Under the surface, the signals are divided. CoinDesk reports U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $635 million on Thursday, according to SoSoValue, after more than $1 billion of inflows in the first three days of the week.
Pluang's 24-hour fund-flow data also shows Bitcoin with a $43.6 million net outflow, while Ethereum attracted $77.08 million in net inflows.
In derivatives, CoinDesk says futures volume fell 19% and liquidations dropped 23% over 24 hours, open interest rose about 1% for both BTC and ETH, and bitcoin funding ticked up to 0.0067% as longs paid slightly more to hold positions.
What comes next: Fed meeting and macro pressure
The week ahead hinges on the Federal Reserve's Oct. 27-28 meeting.
Positioning also leaves questions: bitcoin's one-week put-call skew has dropped to about 4% from a mid-month peak near 14%, suggesting downside worry has eased, yet ether's skew sits near 13% with puts dominating its most-traded contracts, led by the Oct.
26 $2,200 put with roughly 9,000 contracts, per CoinDesk. De-risking in ZEC, SOL, XRP and DOGE — ZEC open interest slid 8% on a 1.5% price drop — suggests capital is still rotating rather than returning wholesale.