Bitcoin's Lowest Close Since September Came With 61 of 71 Majors Red — and the Cash to Buy It Is $15.6 Billion Smaller Than May

Thursday's session, measured

Bitcoin is at $79,011 as of 22:00 UTC, down 2.9% on the day and 5.5% in October. The session opened at $81,343, printed $81,971 and then sold to $78,297 — a 4.7% range. That low is the weakest print since 18 September, and the last time bitcoin closed this low was 17 September at $76,417.

Ether is at $2,270, down 4.1% and its lowest close since 19 August, after trading $2,233. Solana is at $97.16, down 5.5%, with a $95.00 low that was its weakest print since 26 August. BNB lost 7.3%, XRP 5.7%, ADA 7.1%, LINK 7.0%, AVAX 7.0%, LTC 7.0%, SUI 7.4% and DOGE 5.3%.

Strip the stablecoins and the wrapped or staked derivatives out of Coinpaprika's top 100 by market cap and 61 of the 71 remaining assets are lower over 24 hours. The median move is -4.78%. Total market cap is $2.77 trillion, roughly $79 billion lighter on the day, and bitcoin dominance sits at 57.31% — the heavier selling was in everything that is not bitcoin.

The four that held

Four of the 56 majors and large caps tracked here on Binance's USD pairs finished higher: HYPE at $92.72 (+14.1%), TRX at $0.362 (+9.8%), XMR at $118.70 (+4.8%) and TON at $1.60 (+0.9%).

HYPE printed $97.74, its highest level since the pair listed on Binance on 24 September and above the $95.25 peak from 5 October. TRX printed $0.365, the first session at that price since 28 May — and it is the exact resolution the 27 October double-top read laid out: a 0.3502 ceiling that had rejected the market twice, with a close over 0.3323 opening 0.3543. TRX is now $0.355, after the 0.3323 trigger.

Funding never went negative

At the 00:00 UTC stamp on 30 October, bitcoin perpetuals on Binance pay longs 0.00184% per eight hours — about 2.0% annualised. Of the twelve majors tracked here, only TIA (-0.00277%, -3.0% annualised) and SUI (-0.00165%, -1.8%) carry a negative rate. ADA pays 0.00814% and DOGE 0.01000%, or 8.9% and 11.0% annualised.

Open interest did not fall either. Binance's BTC perpetual book holds 95,786 BTC, worth $7.79 billion, against 93,117 BTC and $7.60 billion on 15 October — 2.9% more contracts while the price fell 3.9% across the same fourteen days.

That combination is the difference between a flush and a slide. A flush takes funding negative, open interest down and liquidations up. Here the positioning stayed long and kept paying for the privilege while the tape fell underneath it.

And the cash pile shrank

Stablecoin supply is $300.76 billion, the lowest since 20 August. It is down $1.32 billion in seven days, $5.97 billion in thirty and $15.60 billion — 4.9% — from the 20 May record of $316.35 billion. USDT accounts for $179.92 billion of the total and USDC $71.48 billion.

A dip gets bought with freshly minted stablecoins. There is no new supply here, so the market is being re-priced with less cash in it than it had in May and less than it had last week — which is why the bounce off $78,297 has so far stalled $714 above the low.

The levels that decide what comes next

For bitcoin the line is $78,297, Thursday's low. Below it the only reference left is the 17-18 September floor at $76,296 and $76,417. Above it sits $79,220, the level the 28 October FOMC hold left bitcoin to defend — and one that has now given way twice in a week, as the Fed-day read warned it would have to hold.

Ether's $2,233 low stopped 11.5 points above the $2,221.54 print from 20 August, and Solana's $95.00 stopped five cents above the $94.95 low from 26 August. Both are sitting on their August floors carrying the same leverage they brought into October.

October is -5.5% for bitcoin and the month's range is $78,297 to $87,220, so the two sessions left decide whether this month closes as a slide or as a failed breakdown. The daily structural read on the majors runs every morning on the analysis desk, and the live tool directory is at earncrypto.dev/tools.