Bitcoin (BTC) Closes Below 50-Day Moving Average for First Time Since August

Update 11:47 UTC: Liquidations totaled $495.74 million in 24 hours, with $318 million of that from longs and 175,527 traders wiped out, per Coinglass.

The $81,000 to $85,000 Range Finally Breaks

A month of choppy trade between roughly $81,000 and $85,000 has ended with a break of a widely watched trend line. Bitcoin (BTC) price trades near $81,800 at the time of writing, while the daily chart shows the first close beneath the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) since August, after another rejection near $85,000. The Oct. 22 candle printed one of the heaviest selling volumes of the month, which turned the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement at $82,614 into resistance.

Volatility is compressing inside the range. Bollinger Bands, which track realized dispersion rather than implied volatility, have narrowed to roughly $6,000 wide, against about $30,000 during the August expansion, and earlier this week they printed their tightest reading in about two and a half years. Over a longer window, volatility has run at 38% across 90 days, about eight times the euro's 4.6%, which is why a range break tends to travel. Such compression has historically preceded a sharp expansion, although the bands alone say nothing about direction; losing the 50-day line is what tilts the odds lower. Derivatives data maps where a break could accelerate: the largest liquidation cluster on Binance sits between $82,500 and $82,650, about 1% above spot and overlapping the Fibonacci shelf, while leveraged longs cluster near $80,850 and again around $80,000. Earlier this month a slide toward $80,400 flushed more than $1 billion in positions. Open interest stands at $54.09 billion with OI-weighted funding still positive at 0.0068%, down from roughly 0.010% earlier in the week, so some excess leverage has cleared without flipping positioning to the short side. Binance accounts for roughly 20% of total open interest, so the heatmap captures only part of the market, but the clusters mark levels where forced orders can accelerate a move. CME futures, which hold $9.36 billion in open interest, close for the weekend alongside US spot ETFs, leaving thinner offshore perpetual markets to set the price.

A separate chart read frames the same rejection in broader terms: since topping near $87K in late September, Bitcoin (BTC) has printed a sequence of lower highs, with the latest attempt turned away at the $84K resistance band, leaving price consolidating around $81.6K inside a broad ascending channel that has governed the recovery from the June lows near $58K. The $80K–$81K demand zone now overlaps the rising lower boundary of the short-term channel, and a defense of that confluence could carry a relief bounce toward $84K, with $86K the heavier overhead supply. A daily close beneath the channel midline would instead open the $75K–$78K order block that anchored the September rally, and the channel's lower boundary near $72K stands as the final bullish line. Daily RSI sits near 47, below neutral but not oversold, while CryptoQuant's Spot Average Order Size stays dominated by large whale orders with retail participation largely absent since late 2025, a mix that reduces the odds of a crowded top.

The break has since accelerated on a geopolitical trigger. President Donald Trump said Friday the United States may take "another action" against Iran, echoing the February "Operation Epic Fury" strike, and the remarks landed on an already nervous market: the Dow dropped 652 points as oil pushed toward $120 a barrel, and total crypto market cap shed an estimated $140 billion over the week. Liquidations totaled $495.74 million in 24 hours, with $318 million of that from longs and 175,527 traders wiped out, per Coinglass. Benjamin Cowen's downside path runs through a weekly close below $83,000, the Oct. 28 FOMC decision and Oct. 29 PCE data, unless Bitcoin (BTC) reclaims and holds $83,000.

Our Bitcoin technical analysis and support and resistance scoring frame the same picture. The nearest resistance at $81,718.86 carries an 84/100 score, with the SMA 50, the R1 pivot, the 0.236 Fibonacci level and the prior-day high all stacked there, and the next meaningful barrier waits at $84,208.26, scored 88 out of 100. Below, the strongest support level sits at $74,640.37 with a score of 80 out of 100, backed by the SMA 100, the 0.500 Fibonacci retracement and the Ichimoku cloud bottom. Positioning stays leveraged rather than one-sided: perp funding reads 0.0038%, open interest holds at $16.2B and the long/short account ratio sits at 2.34, so a squeeze higher is not off the table, even with the RSI at 42.16 and a bearish MACD signal on a sideways trend read (as of 15:05 UTC).

ETF Outflows Reach $322 Million

Institutional demand cooled at the same time. On-chain data from Glassnode shows US spot ETF flows turned to net withdrawals of 3,964 Bitcoin (BTC) on Oct. 22, worth roughly $322 million. The exit followed two strong inflow days that had backed the push toward $85,000, and it adds to repeated outflows the funds already posted earlier in October. Every major rally this year has relied on a multi-day inflow streak, which means spot demand may struggle to absorb a leverage flush without renewed buying. Without renewed buying, the demand that carried each leg higher this year is missing, and leveraged flow becomes the marginal price setter. The timing matters too: ETF creation and redemption desks go quiet over the weekend, so forced flow would meet perpetual books with thinner liquidity instead.

Analyst Benjamin Cowen made the same point in an X post, writing that a daily close under the 50-day SMA would likely carry Bitcoin down to the bull market support band. His observation was that other risk assets, from ETH to MSTR to the Nasdaq, are already sitting on that band, so the largest crypto asset would be catching up rather than leading. That band spans from the 21-week EMA at $76,700 to the 20-week SMA at $72,500, with the 0.382 Fibonacci level at $73,139 near its lower edge. Ali Martinez has separately flagged $73,000 as key before the November 3 midterms, a figure close to that edge. A move into the band would not necessarily end the broader uptrend, but a weekly close below $72,500 would challenge the bull market structure. A daily close below $81,000 opens the 0.5 Fibonacci level at $77,876, about 4.6% beneath spot. The print that would break the bearish case is a daily close above $84,000; until then, holding above $82,600 could still squeeze price toward $85,000 first, and sellers keep the edge into a weekend thin on institutional liquidity.

@benjamincowen · X post

X post.

View on X