Market highlights
- Crypto declined, coinciding with hot U.S. inflation data and an AI stock sell-off.
- Bitcoin fell to a weekly low near US$80,100 on Thursday before holding above US$80,000.
- JPMorgan brought its JPM Coin deposit token to Ethereum for institutional clients.
- Digital asset investment products saw outflows of US$593.3 million for the week.
- MSCI finalised index rules that could remove bitcoin treasury firms such as Strategy.
- The White House's crypto adviser Patrick Witt is leaving, with no successor named.
Macro market overview
U.S. markets ended the week lower as a sell-off in artificial intelligence (AI) and chip stocks deepened on Friday. The S&P 500 fell 1.1% on Friday and the Nasdaq lost 2.1%, as Micron and Intel led declines on doubts over how long the AI build-out will last. The 10-year Treasury yield ended the week at 5.09%, then rose to around 5.14% on Monday, when U.S. stocks rebounded, with the S&P 500 up 0.4% and the Nasdaq up 1.1% as chip stocks recovered.
Midweek volatility followed hotter-than-expected inflation data. The September consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.7% from a year earlier against a forecast of about 3.6%, and producer prices rose 1.3% on the month against a forecast of 0.6%. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said on Friday that he does not "prejudge" meetings and gave no signal on October, and CME's FedWatch tool now puts the likelihood of a rate hike at the Fed's October 28 meeting at around 15%, down from 19.4% a week ago.
Oil prices rose as attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz continued and Ukraine vowed to keep striking Russian refineries. Brent crude settled at US$109.86 a barrel on Friday, while WTI settled at US$101.41. Gold traded around US$4,150 an ounce on Monday. In China, third-quarter GDP growth accelerated to 4.5% from a year earlier, slightly above forecasts.
Looking ahead, the Fed is in its blackout period before its October 28 decision, so market participants will presumably focus on inflation readings abroad, flash purchasing managers index (PMI) data and Treasury yields.
Weekly performance: S&P 500 -1.9%, Dow Jones +0.7%, Nasdaq -4.5%.
Looking ahead:
- UK CPI - Wednesday, October 21
- U.S. initial jobless claims - Thursday, October 22
- U.S. and global flash PMIs - Friday, October 23
- U.S. FOMC decision - Wednesday, October 28
Crypto Market Performance
Market Cap: $2.76T (-2.1% 7D)
All crypto sectors saw losses this week, presumably on renewed macroeconomic uncertainty. Currencies held up best with a 1.9% decline, followed by smart contract platforms at 4.8%, while financials lagged with a 10.1% decline. The crypto fear and greed index is in "neutral" at 49, down from 56 a week ago.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Bitcoin (BTC)
- Opened the week at US$82,509, reached a weekly high of US$83,823 on Tuesday, October 13, then declined, coinciding with hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data and a sell-off in AI-linked stocks, before falling to a weekly low of US$80,117 on Thursday, October 15. Bitcoin recovered into the weekend, trading in a narrow range, and is now trading around US$82,000 (-0.6% 7D).
- BTC dominance ranged between 59.7% and 60.4% this week.
- Bitcoin investment products saw outflows of US$228.4 million.
MSCI announced the results of its consultation on "non-operating" companies, saying the new screen will apply from November 30 and end the interim protection it gave in October 2025 to companies holding more than 50% of their assets in digital assets. Media reports say the rule could remove bitcoin treasury firms such as Strategy and Metaplanet from MSCI's equity indexes, though MSCI has not named any company and will publish the final list on November 11. JPMorgan estimates Strategy could face up to US$2.8 billion of outflows if excluded, and Strategy's Michael Saylor has called the rule "discriminatory". Any index changes would affect the companies' shares rather than the bitcoin they hold.
Strategy filed to pay daily dividends on its STRC preferred stock for November at a 12% annual rate, subject to a stockholder vote on October 28. Management said it would recommend keeping the rate at 12% until STRC shows sustained trading near US$100 per share.
Google Quantum AI reported a roughly 40-fold reduction in errors on its Willow chip using a technique called magic state cultivation, in a paper published in Science. The result remains far from a practical threat to bitcoin: a Google paper in March estimated that breaking Bitcoin's cryptography would take fewer than 500,000 physical qubits, and Willow has 105.
In bitcoin buying news:
- Strategy bought 267 bitcoin (US$22.1 million), bringing its holdings to 848,517 BTC (over US$69 billion) at an average purchase price of US$75,446 per bitcoin. The company also spent US$193.1 million buying back its STRC preferred shares.
- Strive bought 4,045 bitcoin (about US$335 million) between October 12 and 16, bringing its holdings to 36,818 BTC (about US$3 billion).
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Ethereum (ETH)
- Opened the week at US$2,489, reached a weekly high of US$2,532 on Tuesday, October 13, then declined through the week, coinciding with hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data, before falling to a weekly low of US$2,336 on Sunday, October 18. Ethereum is now trading around US$2,403 (-3.4% 7D).
- Ethereum dominance ranged between 10.6% and 11.0% this week.
- Ethereum-focused funds saw outflows of US$320.1 million.
JPMorgan brought its JPM Coin deposit token to Ethereum for institutional clients, after launching it on Coinbase's Base network in November 2025. Each token represents a dollar held in a JPMorgan account and can be redeemed at any time, and only approved counterparties can hold it. JPMorgan, Citigroup and other large banks plan to launch a shared tokenised deposit network as early as the first half of 2027.
Ethereum and other altcoins fell harder than bitcoin on Thursday. Ethereum-focused funds saw a small inflow on Tuesday, followed by outflows in each of the next three sessions.
In Ethereum buying news:
- BitMine bought 12,535 ETH (about US$30 million). The company now holds over 6 million ETH, worth US$14.3 billion, or around 4.9% of supply. Over 5 million of BitMine's holdings are staked.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Altcoins
The altcoin season index is currently 56, which is leaning toward altcoin season, though a broad-based rally across crypto is not present.
Ripple effect
- XRP declined by 4.7%. The token slipped despite DriveWealth's plan to use Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. The brokerage infrastructure firm will start in Europe, then expand to the U.S., though no live partners or XRP demand have been confirmed.
Alpenglow countdown
- Solana declined by 3.5%. The layer-1 network fell with the wider market ahead of its Alpenglow upgrade, which Anza has scheduled for Wednesday, October 21 after an earlier delay. Anza says the new consensus design cuts finality from about 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds.
Crypto ETF News
Digital asset investment products saw outflows of US$593.3 million for the week, coinciding with a sell-off in AI-linked stocks.
In altcoins, XRP, Solana and HYPE saw outflows of US$1.8 million, US$25.5 million and US$17.5 million, respectively.
Assets in BlackRock's crypto ETFs rose 63% in the third quarter to US$79.6 billion, from US$48.8 billion, on US$7.9 billion of net inflows plus market gains. The total remains 23% below its level a year earlier.
BlackRock filed to launch the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protect ETF, which would seek upside exposure to the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) while seeking "a level of downside protection". It would be BlackRock's third bitcoin ETF filing, according to Bloomberg Intelligence's James Seyffart.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Other crypto news
- Patrick Witt, the White House's crypto adviser, is leaving for the private sector, with no successor named. The White House said the CLARITY Act "will continue to be a priority". The bill stalled in the Senate after a 49–50 cloture vote on September 15, and no new vote has been scheduled, with Congress in recess until after the November 3 midterm elections.
- Allium reported that stablecoin payments reached about US$482 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up 45% from a year earlier, while total stablecoin supply was little changed at around US$305 billion.
- Mastercard launched its Global Money Platform, a multi-currency account that holds fiat currencies and stablecoins and is built on stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK, which it bought for around US$1.8 billion. Mastercard plans payouts in more than 40 currencies across over 200 countries in 2027.
- Nine U.S.-listed companies, including Broadcom, Verizon, CoreWeave and UnitedHealth, objected to tokenised versions of their shares trading on OKXICE, the venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, under the SEC's innovation exemption. An objection blocks the token on that venue only, and Nasdaq has opted out of tokenising its own shares.
- The European Banking Authority (EBA) classed Circle's USDC as the first "significant" e-money token under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), meaning the EBA will directly supervise its reserves, liquidity and redemption plans from November 12. USDC has a supply of nearly US$73 billion, the second largest after Tether's USDT.
Inside the Markets
Crypto finished September higher despite a Fed rate hike, rising bond yields and a setback for the CLARITY Act. Bitcoin ETF demand helped support the recovery.
In this month's Inside the Markets, we look at how crypto held up through the Fed's first rate hike since 2023, rising Treasury yields, oil above US$100 and the CLARITY Act's Senate setback, and the key catalysts for October.
from Caleb & Brown Cryptocurrency Brokerage.
