Brief for 2026-10-29: BTC -1.67% over 24h. Liquidity state: SUPERPOSITION (73). US traders have bid below the global price for 54 straight days. Fear & Greed 51 (neutral).
This is the archived market brief for 2026-10-29. The numbers below reflect the market at the end of that day. View today's brief →
Market pulse
Where the market stands right now: price, dominance, sentiment, and sideline capital.
BTC $80118 · -1.67% in 24h
BTC dominance 59.47% · total market cap $2.7T
Fear & Greed: 51 (Neutral)
Retail Euphoria Index: 65 (EUPHORIA)
Stablecoin supply: $302.0B · -$1.2B 24h
Liquidity & stress
ByKaranteli's own liquidity-state model plus the gap between US-regulated and global pricing.
PsiCharge state: SUPERPOSITION · score 73/100
In this state over the last 12 months (3775 readings), BTC averaged -0.10% over the next 24h and closed higher 52% of the time
Coinbase Premium -0.12%: US bids below global price, day 54 of the streak
Flow & positioning
Order-flow toxicity and where leveraged open interest moved in the last 24 hours.
BTC order-flow toxicity (VPIN) 0.14, 54th percentile of 90 days
Biggest OI move: AVAXUSDT open interest -4.7% with price -3.6% (long squeeze)
Across 10 tracked majors: 2 adding leverage, 3 squeezing out
Top-30 perp positioning: 15 symbols long crowded, 15 in short ramp
Whales, positioning and stock perps
What the largest Hyperliquid accounts hold, how Binance accounts are positioned, the stock and commodity perps, and the Korea and Turkey premium.
Hyperliquid whales (top 1000 accounts by equity): $2.7B long vs $3.4B short, 44% long
BTC whale book: 41% long on $1.7B of open positions
Implied volatility and what the tape actually paid for in the last 24 hours.
BTC implied volatility (DVOL): 37.4
24h taker premium: $4.0M into calls vs $3.6M into puts
Largest print: buy BTC-24SEP27-80000-C · $2.2M premium
Put/call OI ratio 0.59 · call wall at $95000, put wall at $60000
Liquidations
Forced liquidations recorded across our exchange feeds in the last 24 hours.
24h wipeouts: $162.0M longs vs $74.5M shorts across 71,441 events
Largest single liquidation: ETHUSDT $6.5M
2 cascade events detected in 24h, largest $51.4M
ETF flows
US spot ETF net flows, last finalized trading day.
BTC ETFs +$137.3M on 2026-10-28 · day 3 of the inflow streak
ETH ETFs $21.4M on 2026-10-28 · day 3 of the outflow streak
Calendar
What is scheduled, and what similar days have actually done to price.
FOMC statement · December 8-9, 2026 in 41 days
Fed days move BTC 2.5x a normal half hour (18 meetings measured)
CFTC week of 2026-10-20: hedge funds net -4,942 BTC futures contracts (+902 WoW)
Desk highlights
The notes the desk scored highest this day, in full.
Daily Brief
Coinbase stays below global price for 54 days
Coinbase has priced Bitcoin under global exchanges for 54 days running. The Coinbase premium, the gap between the US price and the global one, read -0.12% on Oct 29. The 1.73% fall over 24 hours to $80,034 left American bidders on the same side of that gap.
The pain in leverage landed on $AVAX. Open interest, the value of open futures bets, dropped 5.6% with price down 3.7%, a long squeeze where leveraged buyers were closed out. Across 10 tracked majors, 3 were squeezing out and 1 was adding leverage.
Sentiment sits at 51 on Fear and Greed, neutral, and Bitcoin holds 59.46% of a $2.7T market.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0900-daily-brief, data as of 2026-10-29 09:00 UTC
Coinbase Premium
US buyers bid under global price for day 54
Fifty four days in a row. That's how long Coinbase has priced Bitcoin under the rest of the world in our records, with Oct 28 adding another day at -0.116%. American buyers kept bidding below what traders on global exchanges were paying.
The gap that day came in smaller than its seven day average of -0.139%, yet the side never flipped. The size moves around from day to day; the direction is what has held for the whole run.
Further out the curve, quarterly $BTC futures traded at an annualized +5.58% over spot, the yearly rate of the extra price traders paid to hold Bitcoin through futures until expiry.
Since 2017, days in this very low band saw a median -0.1% BTC move over the next 7d (n=665, base +0.5%, 9y of records). History, not a forecast.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0720-premium-daily, data as of 2026-10-29 07:20 UTC
Network Health
Bitcoin hashrate fell 8.1% in a week
A week took 8.1% off Bitcoin's computing power, and yet the month barely moved. Our node counted hashrate, the total machine power securing the chain, at 1021 EH/s on Oct 28, with a 7 day change of -8.1% against -0.3% over 30 days.
Difficulty, the bar miners must clear to find a block, read 140.58T.
Miners took in 496.0 BTC for the day. The fee rate on Oct 28 was 1.0 sat/vB, the price senders paid per unit of block space.
Since 2017, days in this very high band saw a median +0.1% BTC move over the next 7d (n=636, base +0.5%, 8y of records). History, not a forecast.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0540-network-daily, data as of 2026-10-28 00:20 UTC
Free Datasets
Solana SPHR buyers pay +8.07% over the share
Buyers of the tokenized SPHR on Solana are paying more than the stock itself costs. The token trades at a +8.07% premium to the underlying SPHR share.
That premium sets the wrapper token's price against the price of the share it tracks. A positive reading means one token costs more than the share behind it, and here the gap is +8.07%.
A premium shows where the token trades against its underlying. It doesn't show which way either price moves next. Anyone holding the token on chain is holding it above what the same share costs on its home market.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0740-data-spotlight, data as of 2026-10-29 07:40 UTC
Withdrawals and NetworksAlert
WEEX closes USDC withdrawals on XDC
WEEX just shut USDC withdrawals on the XDC network. The change appeared in the venue's own currency list during our daily read.
If you keep $USDC on WEEX and planned to send it to an XDC wallet, that path through the exchange is closed for now. Deposits and other networks may still work.
A withdrawal pause is the earliest public sign a venue gives when something is wrong, and most of them turn out to be routine maintenance.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0507-event-venue-event, data as of 2026-10-29 05:07 UTC
LiqMapAlert
$19.0M of Bitcoin longs forced shut
Leveraged Bitcoin buyers just took a hit. Across the major venues, exchanges shut $19.0M of $BTC long positions in the last 30 minutes. These were borrowed money bets on a higher price, and each was closed automatically when the collateral behind it no longer covered the drop.
The pain landed on one side only. Positions betting on a fall saw just $25.5K closed over the same half hour.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0207-event-liq-burst, data as of 2026-10-29 02:07 UTC
Withdrawals and NetworksAlert
Binance halts USDT withdrawals on NEAR
Binance has turned off USDT withdrawals on the NEAR network. We caught the change in the exchange's own currency list during our daily read.
Anyone holding $USDT on Binance and planning to send it to a NEAR wallet can't take that route through the exchange for the moment. Deposits, and withdrawals over other networks, may still be running.
A paused network is the earliest public signal a venue gives when something is off, though most of these pauses turn out to be routine maintenance.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0137-event-venue-event, data as of 2026-10-29 01:37 UTC
Withdrawals and NetworksAlert
KuCoin halts Ether withdrawals on Optimism
Ether holders on KuCoin lost one way out. The exchange just closed ETH withdrawals over the Optimism network, a change that showed up in KuCoin's own currency list during our daily read.
Anyone planning to move $ETH from KuCoin to an Optimism wallet can't take that route through the exchange for now. Deposits and withdrawals on other networks may still be open.
A closed withdrawal route is the earliest public signal an exchange gives when something is off, though most of these pauses come down to routine maintenance.
Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-29#2026-10-29-0037-event-venue-event, data as of 2026-10-29 00:37 UTC
Desk log
The rest of the day's notes, in order of publication.
SuperChart
A quiet Bitcoin day forced out a $1.2M short
A quiet day on price still had one expensive exit. Bitcoin moved +0.39% in the 24 hours to Oct 29 and trades at $81,182.
The largest single liquidation was a short liquidation of $1.2M on Binance. A trader betting on a lower price had the position closed by the exchange once the margin ran out. Across the window our collectors logged 1,288 recorded prints of $1K or more.
The heatmap behind the candles is an estimate of where leveraged positions sit. The prints on them are recorded.
Liquidations
Short bets took most of the forced closures
Traders betting on a drop carried most of the damage on Oct 28. Our streams recorded $165.6M of forced closures across 11 venues and 57,391 events. Shorts accounted for $96.5M and longs for $69.1M, a 41.8% long share. That total is a floor from public venue streams.
$ETH led with $36.3M, and $25.7M of it came from short positions. $BTC followed at $34.1M, also tilted to shorts at $21.3M. The single largest closure was a $1.69M PUMP position on Binance.
The day ran 38.1% above Oct 27's $119.9M, yet stayed under the 7 day average of $246.7M.
TradFi Perps
Forced closures on stock perps jump 117%
Forced closures on Binance's TradFi perpetuals jumped to $32.27M on Oct 28, +117% from $14.87M on Oct 27. Neither side escaped. Leveraged buyers lost $15.6M and sellers $16.6M, a 48% longs / 52% shorts split, across 180 contracts and 7,659 recorded events.
By name, the losses fell on different crowds. SanDisk's SNDK led at $5.81M, with $4.11M of it from bets on a lower price. Alphabet's GOOGL came next at $4.09M, almost all of it from buyers ($3.98M against $111K).
The single biggest forced closure of the day was in crude oil, a $446K position on CL.
Borrow Rates
XRP longs on OKX pay 10.95% a year
On OKX, holding a leveraged $XRP long cost 10.95% a year in funding, the fee longs pay shorts, in the Oct 29 read at 05:25 UTC. Borrowing XRP itself on margin at the same venue cost just 1%.
That 9.95% difference between the two rates was the widest among the 15 assets across the three venues we track.
Dollar loans were priced further apart by venue. Binance charged 5.49% a year to borrow $USDT on margin and OKX charged 3.8%. Bybit's 3.93% set the median.
Options Flow
Largest trades all land on the $80,000 strike
One strike, $80,000, drew the three largest $BTC options trades of the past 48 hours, and each was negotiated off the order book as a block.
A taker bought a Sep 24, 2027 $80,000 call for $2.2M in premium. On that same expiry, a $80,000 put was sold for $1.4M. A Mar 26, 2027 $80,000 call was sold for another $1.4M.
Across 16,478 recorded trades in the last 24 hours, takers bought $5.0M of calls against $3.3M of puts. Block trades carried 52% of all premium dollars that changed hands.
Insurance Funds
OKX and Bybit insurance funds shrank
OKX and Bybit led a small drop in exchange insurance funds in the 24 hours to Oct 29. OKX, the largest fund at $2.97B, changed -1.01%. Bybit, at $1.15B, moved -1.03%, the biggest swing of the 10 venues. Binance and MEXC each added +0.02%.
All 10 funds together hold $7.61B, a -0.57% change worth -$43.5M, and -0.55% over seven days. That money is what an exchange keeps to pay for liquidations that close below a trader's bankruptcy price. It equals 16.31% of the perpetual open interest, the open futures bets, we track on these venues.
OKX's fund covers 56.56% of its open bets; Crypto.com's covers 0.81%. These are balances the venues report, not audits.
Expiries and Settlements
Deribit settles a single AVAX future at $8.635
Deribit's USDC margined $AVAX future closed at $8.635 at 08:00 UTC on Oct 29, the only dated contract to settle in the 24 hours to 09:15 UTC. A dated future has a fixed end date, and every open position on it closes at that settlement price.
Friday, Oct 30 brings the next batch. Bybit closes delivery contracts on $BTC, $ETH, DOGE, HYPE and MNT, one each, and Bullish closes one Bitcoin contract.
Across the next 7 days, 131 dated futures expire on 15 venues, alongside 6,708 option contracts.
Order Book Heatmap
Two big orders box in Bitcoin's price
Two large resting orders bracket the $BTC spot price on Oct 29, each just 0.05% from mid. Across 21 spot venues at 09:39 UTC, the biggest bid was $39.6M at $80.0K and the biggest ask $42.5M at $80.1K, with mid at $80.1K.
A little further out, buyers carry more weight. Bids within 2% of mid came to $198.3M against $143.3M of asks, a 16.1% tilt toward the buy side.
That cushion grew over a day when price fell 1.7% from $81.5K. Bid depth was 34% larger than 24 hours earlier, and asks were 15.7% thinner. This is a snapshot, and resting orders can be pulled at any time.
Whale Tape
Big traders split, sellers edge ahead
Sellers held a thin edge among large traders in the 24 hours to 10:00 UTC on Oct 29, but not enough to call the day theirs. Whale sized sells came to $9.09B against $8.70B of buys, giving buyers 48.9% of the flow, inside the 45% to 55% range we read as two sided.
Bitcoin drew $9.96B of that large order money across 4,899 orders, ahead of Ether at $6.73B. The biggest single order of the day, $32.3M, also landed on $BTC.
In all, 9,326 orders cleared our whale size threshold, with $SOL a distant third at $555.8M.
Written by the ByKaranteli desk writer, an AI model, from the platform's recorded data and checked against that data before publishing, without human edits. Translations are machine made from the English note; the English text is the record.