Bitcoin Careens Toward $100K as Morning Bounce Fails

Bitcoin BTC$87,442.10 continued to slide on Tuesday U.S. hours, falling below $102,000 and taking out the lows of the October 10 crash.

The largest crypto plunged 4.5% over the past 24 hours and 11.8% over the past seven days to near $101,900, its weakest since late June.

Ethereum's ether ETH$2,971.43 also fell below the crash lows at around $3,410, the lowest in three months and down nearly 6% today. XRP$1.8770, BNB BNB$844.42, Solana's SOL SOL$124.05, DOGE$0.1294 and Cardano's ADA ADA$0.3635 declined 5%-7% during the same period. The whole group is down by 15%-20% over the past week.

Crypto-related stocks weren't spared either. Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate BTC owner, tumbled another 5% to its weakest price since April. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) and digital asset investment firm Galaxy (GLXY) declined by similar amounts.

Investor sentiment deteriorated alongside the price action. The well-followed sentiment indicator, the Fear & Greed Index, fell to 21, indicating "extreme fear" on the market. That's the metric's most depressed reading since early April, when BTC fell below $75,000 during the tariff tantrum.

The collapse of the bitcoin treasury company bubble continues to reverberate, with those previous accumulators of BTC having begun turning sellers. Paris-based Sequans early Tuesday announced the sale of 970 BTC in order to help pay down previously accumulated debt.

Inflection point

As bitcoin has fallen almost 20% from its record high above $126,000 less than a month ago, the market is at a crucial inflection point, Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33, said in a Tuesday note.

"BTC has closed above $100,000 for 180 consecutive trading days, but is now dangerously close to this material psychological price level," he wrote.

He argued that the current price action is typical of consolidations that followed major liquidation events of the past few years — "slow, heavy, and frustratingly choppy." However, the research firm's proprietary derivatives signals resemble both prior bottoming patterns and early bear market regimes from late April and mid-December in 2021, he added.

Amid mixed signals, Lunde suggested that it's too early to call October 6 the market top. Positive catalysts — such as expected monetary easing, retirement accounts potentially opening for crypto, growing institutional participation and regulatory softening — don’t support the idea of a cyclical peak yet, he said.

"Our outlook remains bullish, but we will hold a nimble approach should the structure materialize further to the downside." he said.

UPDATE (Nov. 4, 16:40 UTC): Adds analyst comment.