2. Major Events
The week’s price action was driven by four high-impact events that shifted market fundamentals:
- ●Binance CFTC Settlement (October 22): Binance agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to resolve a 2023 lawsuit alleging unregistered trading and anti-money laundering violations. Critically, the settlement included no admission of wrongdoing, and Binance will be permitted to continue operating in the U.S. for retail and institutional clients, removing an estimated $100 billion+ systemic overhang that had weighed on market sentiment for 18 months. The announcement drove BTC to its weekly high of $68,044 within hours of the news breaking.
- ●FOMC Rate Decision (October 23): The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) held its benchmark federal funds rate steady at 5.25-5.50%, in line with market expectations, but Chair Jerome Powell’s press commentary triggered a sharp risk-off selloff across equities and crypto. Powell noted that the committee was “not yet confident” that inflation was on a sustained path to 2%, pushing back against market expectations of three rate cuts in 2025. BTC fell 6.1% in 90 minutes to hit its weekly low of $63,862, with more than $1.1 billion in long positions liquidated across centralized exchanges. The selloff was short-lived, however, after Powell added that a 25 basis point cut in December was still “on the table” if upcoming inflation data meets expectations.
- ●SEC ETH ETF Guidance Leak (October 24): The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it would delay decisions on 7 pending spot ETH ETF applications until January 2025, a move that was largely priced in by markets. A subsequent report from Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas that the SEC was drafting final guidance for spot ETH ETF eligibility, which would treat ETH as a commodity rather than a security, drove a 5% rally in ETH in 2 hours, as investors priced in a near-certain approval in the first quarter of 2025.
- ●MicroStrategy BTC Purchase (October 25): MicroStrategy announced it had purchased an additional 1,200 BTC for $78 million, bringing its total holdings to 215,000 BTC worth $14.3 billion at week’s end, providing another bullish catalyst for the market’s late-week recovery.
3. Price Performance
Bitcoin’s modest 1.2% weekly gain masked extreme intraweek volatility, with the asset trading in a $4,182 range between its weekly high and low. Its underperformance relative to the broader market was driven by a 140 basis point drop in BTC dominance, which fell from 54.2% to 52.8% week-over-week, the largest weekly decline in BTC dominance since July 2024, as investors rotated capital into higher-beta assets.
Ethereum led large-cap gains, rising 7.6% from a weekly open of $2,312 to close at $2,489, with a peak of $2,531 on Friday. Among top 10 assets (excluding BTC and ETH), Solana (SOL) was the top performer, rising 12.3% to $168, driven by growing adoption of its Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) rollups and positive momentum in its non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystem. Cardano (ADA) rose 8.1% to $0.42, while XRP traded flat with a 0.2% gain to $0.57, as investors awaited a final ruling in its ongoing SEC lawsuit.
Mid-cap assets (ranked 11-50 by market cap) delivered even stronger returns, with Optimism (OP) rising 22.7% on news of its upcoming Superchain v2 upgrade, Arbitrum (ARB) gaining 18.4% on record network activity, and Render Token (RNDR) rising 14.9% amid ongoing bullishness around AI-crypto use cases. Small-cap assets had mixed performance, with the CoinGecko Small Cap Index rising 4.8% for the week, while meme coins underperformed: PEPE fell 3.2% and Dogecoin (DOGE) rose a modest 4.1% on unconfirmed rumors of X payment integration.
4. Market Sentiment
Market sentiment shifted dramatically over the week, swinging from extreme greed to neutral and back to greed within 72 hours. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index opened the week at 72 (Greed territory), fell to 61 (the border of Neutral and Greed) on Wednesday following the post-FOMC selloff, and recovered to 74 (Greed) by Friday’s close, as investors bought the dip and priced in positive regulatory news.
Perpetual swap funding rates, a key measure of derivatives market sentiment, reflected this shift: BTC funding rates on Binance started the week at 0.012% per 8 hours (indicating bullish long positioning), flipped to -0.003% on Wednesday as long positions were liquidated en masse, and rose to 0.015% by Friday, a 9-month high for funding rates, indicating growing bullish conviction among derivatives traders.
Total liquidations for the week hit $1.87 billion, with $1.21 billion in long positions liquidated on Wednesday alone, followed by $660 million in short positions liquidated on Thursday and Friday as the market recovered. Social sentiment data from LunarCrush showed that BTC’s social dominance fell 7% week-over-week, while ETH’s social dominance rose 12% and SOL’s rose 18%, indicating that retail and institutional conversation is shifting to altcoin opportunities amid the current consolidation phase for BTC. Retail participation also rose during the dip, with Coinbase reporting a 9% week-over-week increase in new retail sign-ups, the highest weekly growth since August 2024.
5. On-chain Insights
On-chain data confirms that the mid-week dip was driven by short-term speculative selling, rather than long-term holder capitulation:
- ●Exchange Flows: On Wednesday, when BTC hit its weekly low of $63,862, net exchange outflows hit 12,400 BTC, meaning investors were withdrawing BTC from exchanges to hold long-term, rather than selling. Total BTC reserves on centralized exchanges fell 0.7% week-over-week to 1.89 million BTC, the lowest level since 2018, indicating that selling pressure from exchange-held supply is declining.
- ●Miner Activity: Miner net position change was +320 BTC for the week, meaning miners are holding newly mined BTC rather than selling, even as price approaches all-time highs. BTC hashrate hit a new all-time high of 592 EH/s on October 24, reflecting strong network health and growing miner investment in the network.
- ●Holder Behavior: Realized profit and loss data showed that Wednesday’s selloff triggered $428 million in total realized losses, the highest single-day loss since the March 2024 dip, but the majority of these losses were from short-term holders who had purchased BTC in the prior 30 days. Long-term holders (LTHs, holding BTC for more than 155 days) now hold 15.2 million BTC, 76% of the total circulating supply, an all-time high, indicating that LTHs have no intention of selling in the current price range.
- ●ETH Staking: Ethereum staking inflows rose 22% week-over-week to 187,000 ETH, with total staked ETH now at 34.2 million, or 28.7% of the circulating supply, as investors position for spot ETH ETF approvals in 2025 by staking their holdings to earn 4-5% annual yield while waiting for price appreciation.
6. Week Ahead
Investors should monitor five key catalysts in the week ahead (October 28 to November 3, 2024) that will drive market direction:
- U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls Report (November 1): Consensus expectations are for 175,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 3.8%. A cooler-than-expected print will confirm market expectations of a December Fed rate cut, which is bullish for risk assets including crypto, while a hotter-than-expected print could trigger another selloff as investors price in higher-for-longer rates.
- Ethereum Holesky Testnet Upgrade (October 30): The testnet will undergo the Dencun upgrade, a critical precursor to the mainnet Dencun upgrade scheduled for January 2025, which will reduce layer-2 transaction fees by up to 90%. A successful testnet upgrade will be bullish for ETH and layer-2 tokens including OP and ARB.
- SEC Digital Asset Meeting (November 2): The SEC will hold a public meeting focused on digital asset regulatory framework, with investors watching for any official comments on spot BTC and ETH ETF eligibility.
- Coinbase Q3 Earnings (October 31): Consensus estimates are for revenue of $892 million, up 32% year-over-year. A beat on revenue and user growth metrics will be bullish for the broader crypto market, while a miss could trigger a short-term pullback.
Technically, BTC faces immediate resistance at $68,044 (this week’s high), followed by its all-time high of $69,044, with support at $63,862 (this week’s low) and $60,000 (key psychological support). ETH faces resistance at $2,600, with support at $2,300. If BTC consolidates between $65,000 and $68,000 in the week ahead, altcoins are likely to continue outperforming, while a break above $68,000 could trigger a rotation back to BTC as investors chase all-time high momentum.
7. Weekly Stats
| Metric | Value | Weekly Change |
|--------|-------|---------------|
| BTC Weekly Open/Close | $65,840 / $66,627 | +1.2% |
| BTC Weekly High/Low | $68,044 / $63,862 | N/A |
| ETH Weekly Open/Close | $2,312 / $2,489 | +7.6% |
| Total Crypto Market Cap | $2.58 trillion | +2.9% |
| Total Weekly Trading Volume | $1.24 trillion | +18.3% |
| BTC 30-Day Volatility | 22.7% | +330 bps |
| BTC Dominance | 52.8% | -140 bps |
| Total Weekly Liquidations | $1.87 billion | +41% |
| Spot BTC ETF Weekly Inflows | $892 million | +27% |
| MicroStrategy Total BTC Holdings | 215,000 BTC | +0.56% |
| BTC All-Time High Hashrate | 592 EH/s | +2.1% |
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