Crypto market brief · 2026-10-25

One side is pushing hard through the book

One side of the market is pushing much harder than the other. VPIN, a gauge of how unevenly buying and selling volume splits across equal slices of trading, reads 0.181.

That is higher than 97% of the last 90 days, near the top of its own range for that window.

The gauge carries no direction. A high reading says orders are leaning heavily one way through the book, not whether buyers or sellers are doing the leaning. Pair it with price and liquidation data to see which side it is.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-1730-data-spotlight, data as of 2026-10-25 17:30 UTC

US buyers bid under global price for 50 days

US buyers have bid below the global Bitcoin price for 50 straight days. The Coinbase premium, the gap between the US price and the global one, read -0.15% on Oct 25.

The broader mood stayed middling. $BTC traded at $80,345, down 0.44% over 24 hours, Fear and Greed read 54 (neutral), and Bitcoin held 60.11% of a $2.7T market.

Order flow was more one sided than usual. Bitcoin's toxicity score, a gauge of how hard one side pushes through the book, read 0.18, the 97th percentile of the last 90 days. Leverage was leaving too: none of the 10 majors we track added it, 3 were squeezing out, and $AVAX open interest fell 4.2% as price slipped 0.9%.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-0900-daily-brief, data as of 2026-10-25 09:00 UTC

US buyers stay below global price, day 50

For a 50th straight day, Bitcoin traded cheaper on Coinbase than on global venues. On Oct 24 US buyers paid -0.146% less for $BTC than traders elsewhere, a discount at the deep end of our 90 day range.

That gap ran wider than its seven day average of -0.123%. Quarterly futures still priced Bitcoin above spot, a premium worth +5.61% a year when annualized.

The discount itself is small in size. What stands out is how long US buyers have stayed below the rest of the world, now 50 days without a single day above.

Since 2017, days in this very low band saw a median +0.0% BTC move over the next 7d (n=665, base +0.5%, 9y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-0720-premium-daily, data as of 2026-10-25 07:20 UTC

One side leans hard on Ether's order book

One side of the Ether market is leaning hard on the order book. $ETH flow toxicity reads 0.1494, higher than 92% of our past readings.

VPIN, short for volume synchronized probability of informed trading, tracks how much of the traded volume comes from one side pushing through resting orders instead of trading evenly with the other.

Bitcoin sits even further out on the same gauge, at the 96th percentile. The reading shows how lopsided the flow is in $ETH and $BTC. It doesn't say whether buyers or sellers are doing the pushing.

Since 2026, days in this high band saw a median -0.7% BTC move over the next 7d (n=49, base -0.3%, 1y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-1805-vpin-alert, data as of 2026-10-25 18:05 UTC

Miners added power as fees sat at zero

Block space cost 0.0 sat/vB on Oct 24, and miners added computing power all the same. Hashrate, the total machinery securing Bitcoin, came in at 1026 EH/s by our node's count, a 7 day change of +6.6%.

The longer view points the same way, with hashrate +4.3% over 30 days. Mining difficulty, the bar the network sets for finding a block, stood at 140.58T.

Miners took in 546.2 BTC in total revenue that day.

Since 2017, days in this very high band saw a median +0.1% BTC move over the next 7d (n=632, base +0.5%, 8y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-0540-network-daily, data as of 2026-10-24 00:20 UTC

Quantum coins beat Bitcoin by 33.2 points

One theme basket has had a very different month from the rest. Quantum coins are up 29.1% over 30 days, 33.2 percentage points ahead of Bitcoin's -4.2%.

Layer 2 is the only other basket ahead of Bitcoin, and barely, at -3.8% for a 0.3 point edge. Meme sits at the far end, down 15.9% and 11.7 points behind.

No basket gained in the 24 hours to Oct 25. Quantum and Layer 1 fell the least at -0.95% each. AI took the deepest hit at -2.46%, with DePIN right behind at -2.45%.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-2040-themes-daily, data as of 2026-10-25 00:40 UTC

APR buyers pile in on a short leaning board

APR stands apart on a board where most of the pressure sits with traders betting on a drop. Open futures bets on $APR grew 50.04% in the 24 hours to 15:00 UTC on Oct 25. Funding reads 0.04%, a fee buyers pay sellers to keep their bets open. That is new money crowding onto one side, and it tops our pressure board with a score of 79.

The short side looks different. Funding on $BIRB reads -0.27%, meaning shorts pay longs to hold, yet open bets there shrank 13.01%. ORDER shorts pay at -0.11% with open bets almost flat at -0.31%.

Solana is calm by comparison, with funding at 0% and open bets down 2.51%.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-1500-pressure-snapshot, data as of 2026-10-25 15:00 UTC

Ether's leveraged buyers took the heaviest hit

Leveraged buyers carried the losses on Oct 24. Our streams recorded $414.6M of liquidations across 103,785 events on 11 venues. $354.0M of that came from longs, an 85.4% share, against $60.7M from shorts.

$ETH topped every coin at $124.0M, $108.5M of it from longs, just ahead of $BTC at $119.7M. The largest single forced close was an Ether position on Binance, the venue that also carried $245.1M of the total.

The day came in 3.7% below the $430.5M recorded on Oct 23, but well above the 7 day average of $258.5M. These totals are a floor taken from the venues' public streams.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-25#2026-10-25-0110-liquidations-daily, data as of 2026-10-25 01:10 UTC

Binance long forced out of $11.8M position

A single long liquidation of $11.8M on Binance was the biggest forced closure on Bitcoin in the 24 hours to Oct 25. That figure is the size of the position closed, not what the trader lost.

$BTC ended the window at $80,877, a -0.35% move. Across the day our collectors logged 2,882 recorded prints of $1K or more.

The heatmap behind the candles is an estimate of where leveraged positions sit; the prints on the candles are recorded closures.

Bitget closes ETH withdrawals on Arbitrum One

Ether can no longer leave Bitget over Arbitrum One. The exchange just marked withdrawals on that network as closed in its own currency list, which we read daily.

Anyone holding $ETH on Bitget who planned to move it out over Arbitrum One has lost that route for now. Deposits and the other withdrawal networks may still be working.

A closed withdrawal route is the earliest public signal an exchange gives when something is off. Most of these pauses turn out to be routine maintenance.

Gold longs lead a quieter TradFi flush

Leveraged gold buyers took the biggest losses on Binance's TradFi perpetuals on Oct 24, on a far quieter day than the one before. Total closures came to $20.67M, down 78% from $91.92M on Oct 23.

Gold topped the board at $6.22M, and $6.21M of that came from long bets. It also produced the day's largest single closure, at $1.08M. SNDK followed at $3.16M, then silver at $2.97M, almost all of it from longs.

Across 207 contracts and 3,585 events, the split ran 90% longs / 10% shorts. Crude oil was the exception: short sellers took $1.02M of its $1.04M.

Bitget reopens Ether withdrawals on Arbitrum

The pause is over. Bitget has reopened Ether withdrawals on the Arbitrum One network, about 3 hours after it marked that route as closed.

The change showed up in the exchange's own currency list, which we read daily. $ETH holders on Bitget who rely on Arbitrum One to move funds off the venue have that path back.

The closure lasted hours, not days, and the route now shows as available on the venue's own list.

BNB longs on OKX pay far above borrow cost

Long $BNB bets on OKX cost far more to keep open than BNB itself cost to borrow in the Oct 25 read at 05:25 UTC. Funding on the perpetuals, the fee longs pay shorts, ran at 10.95% a year. A margin loan of BNB on the same venue cost 1% a year.

That 9.95% spread was the widest of the 15 assets across the three venues we track.

Dollar loans were tighter. Borrowing $USDT on margin cost 3.5% a year on OKX and 3.9% on Bybit, the median of the three. Binance charged the most at 4.82%.

Bitcoin option buyers pay up for puts

Downside protection drew most of the money in $BTC options over the last 24 hours. Takers paid $6.3M in premium for puts, which pay off if price falls, against $2.2M for calls, which pay off if it rises.

The two largest trades of the past 48 hours both sat on the Dec 25 expiry and went opposite ways. A $2.1M block sold the $72,000 put, and a $1.9M block bought the $75,000 put. The biggest call trade was a $559.6K block buy of the Nov 27 $85,000 call.

Block trades, negotiated off the order book and reported to the venue, carried 35% of all premium dollars across 15,118 recorded trades.

Smallest insurance fund posted the biggest move

Paradex runs the smallest of the 10 exchange insurance funds we track, at $383K, and it posted the biggest move in the 24 hours to Oct 25, at +1.28%. An insurance fund is the money a venue keeps to cover liquidations that close below the trader's bankruptcy price.

The large pools barely moved. All 10 funds hold $7.62B, off -$8.4M or -0.11% on the day and -0.38% over seven days. OKX keeps the largest at $2.98B, at -0.28%, and Binance follows at $2.45B, at +0.11%.

Across the coins we track, the funds equal 16.68% of open perpetual futures bets. These are balances the venues report, not audits.

Deribit lines up Monday's futures expiries

Deribit carries most of Monday's expiries. On Oct 26 it closes 13 dated $BTC futures and 13 dated $ETH futures, plus one contract each on AVAX, HYPE and $SOL. Bullish settles a single Bitcoin delivery future the same day.

Over the next 7 days, 165 dated futures expire across 11 venues, alongside 8,402 option contracts.

The 24 hours to 09:15 UTC on Oct 25 brought one settlement. Deribit's USDC margined AVAX future closed at $8.86 at 08:00 UTC.

Bids lost the most depth in a day

The bid side of the $BTC spot book carried most of the thinning over the 24 hours to 09:37 UTC on Oct 25. Resting bids within 2% of mid were 27.8% shallower than a day earlier, against 13.3% less depth on the ask side.

Bids still outweigh asks. Across 21 spot venues, $167.4M of bids rest within 2% of the $80.2K mid against $136.0M of asks, a 10.3% imbalance toward the bid. The mid moved -0.4% over the same day, from $80.5K.

The largest walls hug the mid. There are $38.7M of bids at $80.1K, 0.05% below, and $33.0M of asks at $80.2K, 0.05% above. Resting orders can be pulled at any moment, so this is a snapshot of the book, not a map of where price goes.

Whale sellers edge out buyers, not by much

Whale sellers had the edge in the 24 hours to 10:00 UTC on Oct 25, though not by enough to call it their day. Large orders sold $7.34B and bought $6.43B, leaving buyers with 46.7% of the flow. Our line for a seller led day sits at 45%.

That came across 7,589 whale sized orders. $BTC drew the most of it, $7.91B over 4,084 orders, and also carried the largest single order at $20.9M. $ETH followed with $5.19B over 3,074 orders, and $SOL was a distant third at $346.3M.

Leveraged longs hold the closer tripwire

At $79,984, Bitcoin's estimated liquidation map put its first long liquidation level a short step under the price at 11:00 UTC on Oct 25, with $BTC at $80,246. Nothing on the short side sat as close.

Above the price, modeled short levels sat at $81,013 and $82,417. Short sellers there would be forced to buy back if price reached them. Below, the deeper modeled long cluster was at $77,644.

Within 3% of the price, modeled exposure came out two sided, with neither leveraged longs nor short sellers carrying the heavier load.

Jupiter traders lean 82% long, whales don't

On Jupiter Perps, 82% of the money in open positions is betting on a rise. Hyperliquid's top whales are positioned the other way, with 43% of their notional long across 275 accounts.

$SOL carries most of the Jupiter long side, $50.9M long against $12.3M short. $BTC holds $23.1M long and $4.2M short, $ETH $4.2M against $840.7K. 24 hour volume reached $174.0M, and the JLP liquidity pool holds $844.6M at 6.09% APR.

Top realized gains for the week of Oct 19 to Oct 25 went to Hk8L…Shab on Ether ($31.3K on $8.1M volume), 4Rtc…Ftti on Solana ($28.9K) and 4PN8…bHCF on Bitcoin ($19.7K).

HTX closes USDT withdrawals on TON

HTX has switched off USDT withdrawals on the TON network. The change appeared in the exchange's own currency list, which we read daily.

Anyone holding $USDT on HTX who planned to send it out over TON has lost that route for now. Deposits and withdrawals on other networks may still be open.

A closed withdrawal route is the earliest signal an exchange shows publicly when something is wrong, but most of these pauses turn out to be routine maintenance.

Satoshi era coins stayed still this week

None of the 34,124 Satoshi era outputs we watch moved this week. These early pay to public key (P2PK) coins, locked in a way that leaves the public key visible on chain, hold 1.71 million BTC between them.

Across the whole chain, 1.93 million BTC sits in outputs with an exposed public key. That is 9.61% of all bitcoin by value and 34.15% of outputs by count, measured on our own node at block 973,005.

Exposure here is a property of how coins are locked, their output type. It is not a timeline for when, or whether, a quantum computer could reach them.

Binance lists the only new perpetual

Binance was the only venue to add a new perpetual contract in the 24 hours to Oct 25. Across the six exchanges we track, $PREDICT was the single new listing.

Our collectors first saw the $PREDICT perpetual on Binance at 08:52 UTC on Oct 25. No other venue on our board listed it, or any other new contract, in the same window.

Ether is tracking Bitcoin almost step for step

Ether has tracked Bitcoin almost step for step over the past 30 days. The correlation between the two reads 0.92, on a scale where 1 means they move together every day and 0 means no link at all.

The reading compares the two coins' price moves across 30 samples in the 30 day window.

At this level, holding $ETH has meant riding mostly the same daily swings as $BTC over the month. Correlation measures how closely the moves line up, not which way either coin went.

Ether trades below yesterday's busy zone

Ether trades at $2,331.18, under the price zone where its perpetual traders spent most of yesterday's session. Bitcoin sits inside its own zone, at $80,387.90.

That zone holds 70% of trading time. For $ETH it ran from $2,331.66 to $2,387.74, with the most traded price at $2,368.05, and Ether closed the day at $2,357.64.

For $BTC the zone ran from $80,104.82 to $80,957.00, built around a most traded price of $80,612.07. Bitcoin's zone was 1.06% wide and Ether's 2.37%, so Ether's traders spread their time over a wider range.

Ether longs carry the heavier modeled risk

Ether's estimated liquidation map tilts toward leveraged buyers on Oct 25. Within 3% of the $2,334 price at 13:00 UTC, more modeled exposure sits below price than above it. Longs, meaning traders buying with borrowed money, carry the heavier side.

The nearest modeled long liquidation level is $2,313, and the largest estimated cluster below price is at $2,267. Above price, short sellers' estimated levels sit at $2,373 and $2,384. Those are the prices where they would be forced to buy back.

All of these levels are modeled from open interest and leverage. They are not recorded liquidations.

Bitcoin buyers and Ether sellers stack more size

Spot books for Bitcoin and Ether lean opposite ways on Oct 25. Across 21 spot venues at 13:58 UTC, $BTC near $80,355 had $172.7M of buy orders resting within 2% of price versus $146.0M of sell orders, an 8.4% tilt toward buyers. $ETH near $2,335 showed the reverse, with $99.0M of offers over $91.4M of bids, a 4.0% tilt toward sellers.

Up close, sellers hold the bigger block on both coins. Bitcoin's largest offer is $41.9M at $80,395, facing $35.5M of bids at $80,315. Ether's is $18.7M at $2,338, facing $16.6M at $2,331. All four blocks sit right next to price.

Resting orders can be pulled before they trade, so this is posted size, not fills.

Chainlink charges the most to move $1.0M

Moving $1.0M through Chainlink's order book on Oct 25 cost an estimated 22.5 bps, the steepest of the eight books we track at 14:00 UTC. The same order in $BTC cost an estimated 0.6 bps.

That cost is the distance between the quoted price and the average price a market order actually fills at. Cardano came next at 19.7 bps, then Dogecoin at 9.9 bps and BNB at 5.9 bps. At the deep end, $ETH cost 1 bps, Solana 2.7 bps and XRP 5.2 bps.

Anyone pushing size through the thin books pays more per dollar, and that includes exchanges closing out forced positions. Large orders in $LINK or Cardano move the price further than the same orders in Bitcoin or Ether.

Every window of the week sealed on Solana

Every five minute window in the 7 days to Oct 25 made it onto Solana, 2,016 in all, for coverage of 100%. The median gap from the end of a window to its Solana block was 54 seconds.

No window was missed. Anchors that landed later than 120 seconds came to 9, and 7 daily attestations were written to Base. Over the week 258,048 records were sealed.

For a trader this means a liquidation total or funding reading we published can be checked against what was sealed at the time. Anyone can check every epoch from the Solana and Base chains alone, without going through us. It shows the numbers were not changed after sealing.

Tether, not Bitcoin, sets Turkey's discount

Lira buyers paid slightly less than the world for Bitcoin on Oct 25, and the coin itself had little to do with it. The Turkey Premium Index came to -0.07% (-7.0 bps).

Tether did the work. USDT/TRY traded -6.6 bps against the official USD/TRY rate, while the crypto leg added just -0.4 bps. The 24 hour average was -6.3 bps, far shallower than the 7 day average of -18.7 bps.

Bitlo was the dearest of five eligible exchanges at -1.9 bps and Binance TR the cheapest at -9.2 bps. It is a price gap, not a trade anyone can lock in.

Sellers stack up as Ether climbs 2.1%

A 2.1% climb in Ether over the 24 hours to 15:35 UTC on Oct 25 came with a thicker wall of sellers, not a thinner one. Offers resting within 2% of the price grew 19.4% deeper over that day, and bids in the same range thinned 10.9%.

Across 21 spot venues that leaves $106.47M in asks against $93.95M in bids within 2%, a 6.2% tilt toward the selling side.

The largest ask wall holds $21.71M just 0.15% above the price. The biggest bid wall, $18.6M, rests 0.05% below. Resting orders can be pulled at any moment, so this is a snapshot of the $ETH book, not a map of where price goes.

Cryptocom charges WIF longs the most

Two venues priced the same $WIF long very differently in the Oct 25 reading at 15:52 UTC. A leveraged long cost 0.11% more per 8 hours on Cryptocom than on Delta Exchange, the widest funding gap on our board. Funding is the periodic fee one side of a perpetual contract pays the other.

If that gap held all year, after taker fees on both legs, the modeled carry comes to 110.01% annualized. That is a model, not a realized return.

$LTC came next with a 0.07% gap between Lighter and dYdX, then POL (Gate against Hyperliquid) and $DOGE (Kraken against XT), each at 0.06% per 8 hours.

56 perps sink into oversold territory

$SOPH carries the most one sided selling on the Binance perpetuals board, with a daily RSI of 15.8 as of Oct 25. RSI is a 14 day gauge of how lopsided recent gains and losses have been; 30 or under counts as oversold, 70 or over as overbought.

$BLUR follows at 17.8 after a -2.3% day, and CT at 21.6 despite a +12.4% bounce over 24 hours.

In all, 56 of 399 crypto perps read oversold and 14 overbought, with the board average at 42.2. ELSA tops the other end at 75.5.

Big Bitcoin traders lean long less than crowd

The crowd and the big money on Binance don't agree on how hard to lean. As of 16:52 UTC on Oct 25, all Binance accounts held 2.13 Bitcoin longs per short, but its largest traders, weighted by position size, held only 1.68.

The rest of the market sides with the crowd. OKX shows 2.11 long per short, and 65.5% of Bybit accounts are positioned for a rise. Buyers hitting the market outpaced sellers by +3,716 BTC over the 24 hours.

Ether carries the most one sided crowd of the 30 coins we track, with 3.26 $ETH accounts on Binance betting on a rise for each one betting on a fall.

Altseason index climbs 11 points in a week

The Altcoin Season Index climbed 11 points in a week to 72 on Oct 25. Of the 50 altcoins we track, 36 beat $BTC over the past 90 days.

That still sits below the 75 line where altseason begins, so the market reads as no clear season. Bitcoin returned 26.6% over those 90 days, the bar every alt had to clear.

The gap between winners and losers is wide. BTW leads at 23x. APR trails at -79.9%, the only name in the bottom five showing a loss.

Bitcoin's share of crypto tops 60%

Bitcoin made up 60.04% of the whole crypto market's value at 19:00 UTC on Oct 25. Its share grew 0.52% over the 24 hours, leaving more of the market's weight on a single coin than a day earlier.

Trader mood edged up as well. The Fear and Greed index, which scores how bold crypto traders feel, gained 3 points to 54, a neutral reading.

The cash side barely moved. Dollar stablecoins totaled $303.30B, down 0.02% on the day.

Bitcoin's market share climbs to 60.02%

Bitcoin's slice of the whole crypto market reached 60.02% in the 24 hours to 19:42 UTC on Oct 25, up 0.5% over that window. That means $BTC held up better than the rest of the coins combined, and every other asset now counts for less of the total.

Ether's share stood at 10.64% at the same reading, in a total market valued at $2.69T.

One day's gain is a single reading, not a trend. It shows where value sat on Oct 25, not where it goes next.

Longs and shorts were flushed almost evenly

Neither side escaped the 24 hours to Oct 25. Leveraged longs lost $40.4M and shorts $40.1M, $80.5M in all over 51,367 forced closures. $ETH took the most at $21.7M, including the largest single one at $697.0K.

Open futures bets across 27 venues came to $70.80B, 2.37% below a day earlier, with 15.69% held on decentralized venues.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $635.5M on Oct 22, Ether ETFs $110.5M. On Hyperliquid, the largest accounts by equity hold 43.4% of their notional long across 272 accounts. The biggest resting $BTC bid wall, $38.7M, sits at $80.4K, 0.05% under mid.

Longs hold 81.4% of Jupiter Perps bets

Traders on Jupiter Perps have put 81.4% of their open bets on a rise, $81.0M in longs against $18.5M in shorts across SOL, ETH and BTC as of Oct 25.

SOL carries the biggest long book at $51.2M, with the coin at $101.41. Bitcoin longs are smaller at $25.3M, but they draw harder on the pool, using 20.93% of what it can lend to that side against 12.57% for SOL.

The short side is the smaller crowd yet the heavier borrower. Each of the three short markets has used 67.01% of its lending capacity. The JLP pool, the liquidity that takes the other side of these trades, holds $847.1M and pays a 6.09% APR.

Jupiter Perps traders lean heavily long

On Jupiter Perps, traders betting on a rise held $81.0M in positions on Oct 25, against just $18.5M betting on a fall. No other Solana perps venue that publishes both sides came close to that tilt. GM Trade, the leader with 44.1% of open interest, sat near even at $108.2M long and $111.0M short.

Jupiter charges longs and shorts an hourly borrow fee instead of funding, with a median of +0.0014%. Its $SOL market was the largest single market on the board at $32.2M, at +0.0016% an hour.

Across 6 venues and 284 markets, open positions totaled $248.3M on $375.1M of 24 hour volume, with Pacifica alone trading $200.2M.

Exchanges closed $8.9M of Ether longs

Exchanges just shut $8.9M of leveraged Ether long positions in the space of 30 minutes. These were bets on a higher $ETH price, closed automatically once the margin behind them could no longer cover the move.

The opposite side saw little of it. Liquidations on bets against Ether came to $271.3K over the same window, so the flush landed almost entirely on buyers.

The totals come from the raw liquidation streams of the major venues.