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TL;DR

  • Crypto traders lost $342.25 million to liquidations in 24 hours, with 83,198 positions closed; longs accounted for $220.44 million (64.4%).

  • Bitcoin fell below $80,000 to $79,988 after the Fed held rates at 3.75–4%; December hike odds jumped to 83%. XRP dropped 2.79% to $1.287, while ETH/BTC hit a multi-month low of 0.02899.

  • ICE (NYSE owner) invested in trade[XYZ] to launch CFTC-regulated 24/7 perpetual futures built on Hyperliquid; HYPE rose 9.14% to $87.39.

  • Levels to watch: $79,080 support, with $146 million in BTC longs at risk, and $87,091, with $131 million in short liquidations.

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Thursday morning, October 29, welcomes crypto market participants with a streak of red numbers on trading screens. Bitcoin is trading at $79,988.02 (-1.53%), Ethereum against BTC is holding at 0.02899 (-0.07%), while XRP is sagging to $1.28722 (-2.79%). The wave of spot sales overlaps with the recent Fed decision to keep the key rate in the range of 3.75–4% per annum, which instantly set automatic stop orders in motion.

The local price correction over the past 24 hours harshly cleared derivatives platforms of excessive "leverage," but large funds are using this moment for a systematic expansion of positions. While margin players are locking in losses, the owners of the NYSE are deploying regulated clearing infrastructure in the U.S., and Strategy is tokenizing dividends.

Forced sales of longs created a short-term dip in exchange order books, which large funds such as ICE, MicroStrategy, and Bitwise are using to quickly buy up supply. The total crypto market capitalization stands at $2.77 trillion, while daily spot trading volume rose by 7.59%, reaching $33.30 billion.

The decline of the derivatives market is accompanied by continuous spot buying and capital inflows into ETFs.

Bitcoin and XRP let buyers down. Who lost the most in the morning sell-off

The fall in quotes over the past 24 hours activated a cascade of stop orders and closed the positions of 83,198 traders who believed too much in a pullback-free uptrend and decided to play big, leaving their hopes for a rally in the exchange order books. The total volume of margin liquidations on derivatives exchanges over the day amounted to $342.25 million as per Coinglass.

Forcibly closed long positions (longs) accounted for $220.44 million (64.4% of the market), while short sellers got off with a light scare and a loss of only $121.81 million (35.6%), merely watching the fall from the sidelines.

The main disappointment for the bulls was Bitcoin: trading terminals liquidated orders of optimistic buyers of the first cryptocurrency for $72.66 million, of which $53.36 million fell precisely on longs. After the Fed meeting and the opening of the Asian sessions, digital gold demonstratively broke through the $80,000 level, settling at $79,988.02.

The BTC dominance index holds at 60.05%, and an additional trip-up for risk assets came from Samsung shares, which fell by more than 5% due to weak quarterly results.

Ethereum lost $71.73 million ($39.84 million in longs), and its quotes against the first cryptocurrency fell to 0.02899, updating a multi-month low and once again leaving altseason fans disappointed, with their unrealistic hopes for an imminent altseason.

The rout also affected XRP, where traders' daily losses amounted to $5.41 million, and quotes on the Bitstamp exchange sank to $1.28722. Price declines were also recorded in the pairs of Solana ($11.15 million in liquidations, price $100.33) and Horizen ($7.77 million).

The Binance exchange once again took the main hit, methodically processing 46.9% of all forced closures. This platform also executed the largest single derivatives order of the day — the liquidation of a long in the ETH/USDT pair worth $6.53 million, which the market maker closed in one move.

Institutional buying amid the noise of liquidations. The main points from morning reports

The macroeconomic background continues to put pressure on the crypto market: the Fed kept the key rate at 3.75–4%, but showed caution regarding inflation. Two FOMC members — Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack — openly advocated a rate hike, and Bank of America (BofA) forecasts new tightening in December 2026 and March 2027. The probability of a rate hike in December soared to 83% versus 49% a month ago.

At the same time, the trade[XYZ] platform and ICE Corporation (owner of the NYSE) announced a strategic partnership to launch regulated 24/7 perpetual futures in the U.S. The project is built on Hyperliquid and is preparing to launch derivatives contracts under CFTC supervision. ICE made a direct investment in trade[XYZ], and the investor pool was led by legendary billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller.

Stanley Druckenmiller is famous for managing the Duquesne Capital fund for 30 years with a phenomenal average return of around 30% per year without a single losing year, and in 1992, together with George Soros, he successfully attacked the British pound.

Commenting on his participation, Druckenmiller noted that he was "happy to become an investor" and called the launch of 24/7 perpetual futures an "innovative product" that he looks forward "to using in trading." Against this backdrop, the HYPE token completely ignored the market panic and recorded an impulsive surge on the chart to $87.391 (+9.14%), absorbing a whale's withdrawal of 694,310 HYPE to Coinbase, thanks to Hyperliquid's buyback algorithm, which has destroyed ~5% of the maximum supply (3.89 billion).

At the same time, high demand is recorded for on-chain derivatives on real-world assets (RWA Perps), whose monthly trading volume in October grew by 27% and reached a record $164 billion. Activity is shifting to tokenized stocks (NVDA, GOOGL, SPCX) and commodities (gold XAU, silver XAG). In the corporate sector, 99.3% of MicroStrategy shareholders approved the transfer of four series of preferred shares to a daily dividend scheme, including weekends. MSTR shares are holding at $141.41.

Fresh morning statistics from SoSoValue confirm that institutional capital is holding its positions:

  • Bitcoin ETF: Net inflow amounted to $27.53 million, interrupting a three-day outflow.

  • Ethereum ETF: A net capital outflow of $21.16 million was recorded.

  • XRP ETF: Net assets reached $1.51 billion (3.79% of XRP's capitalization) with a cumulative inflow of $1.80 billion, while the SEC postpones the deadline for leveraged XRP ETFs to November 2026.

  • HYPE ETF: The new sector accumulates $401.65 million in net assets, led by funds from Grayscale and Bitwise, with a share price of $81.56.

Asset manager Bitwise updated its Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report, raising its base target for Bitcoin by 2036 to $1.6 million (at a CAGR of 34.3%). In the bull case, growth to $3.66 million is forecast, and in the bear case, a fall to $130,686. At the infrastructure level, the XRP Ledger Foundation officially included Flare Networks in its list of recommended validators (dUNL), granting Flare nodes the right to vote when finalizing ledgers and updating XRPL code.

Tough fed and risk zones. What to expect from the market in the coming days

The liquidation heatmap (Liquidation Max Pain) for the monthly period shows a predominance of buyers' stop orders due to the Fed's "hawkish tone." The overall Pain Force Field index is in the Below 94% zone, maintaining the risks of a local squeeze-out of long positions.

Focus for traders — what to watch right now:

  • $79,080.54 level for BTC: The strongest intersection point of longs across 7 rolling windows. A breakdown of the $80,000 support will trigger the automatic closure of longs worth another $146 million.

  • $87,091.27 mark for BTC: The target zone of short pain for market makers, with a seller liquidity pool of $131 million. The structure hints that it is much more profitable for the market to make a quick jab down for the final cleansing of "leveraged" players before moving to all-time highs.

  • Altcoin risk zone: Within 1% of the current price are stop orders for BNB (-0.52%), tokenized silver XAG (-0.61%), and SPCX shares (-0.62%).

  • Squeezed long pools in SOL, LINK, and XRP: Limited spot liquidity increases the risk of their sharp fall at the slightest movement of Bitcoin toward the $79,000 liquidation level.

  • ETF flow vectors: The gap between inflows into BTC and outflows from ETH confirms a temporary flight from altcoins in favor of the first cryptocurrency.

Yesterday's sell-off is technical in nature — a derivatives cleanup — and removes the overhang of open interest. The Fed's tough rhetoric is temporarily restraining the pressure of margin buyers, but the macro trend remains strictly upward thanks to the long-term supply shortage of liquid digital assets.