Darkfost Says Bitcoin (BTC) Needs More Than a $4 Billion Stablecoin Rebound for New Highs

Stablecoin Supply Rebuilds, Slowly

Bitcoin (BTC) enters October's historically strong month carrying a four-part overhang, and the first question mark sits with the capital that normally funds its rallies. The Bitcoin (BTC) price has added 1.98% so far this month, a muted start for a month that closed higher in 10 of the last 13 Octobers with a median gain of 12.73%. That streak is no guarantee either: October 2025 returned a 3.69% loss, the coin's first losing October since 2018. Analyst Darkfost argues too little fresh liquidity is reaching the wider Bitcoin market. Stablecoins are the rail most traders use to stage entries, so their aggregate supply works as a proxy for the dry powder sitting on exchanges. By that measure, the tank is refilling slowly: the stablecoin market cap shed $14 billion between May and September, and the rebound since has added only $4 billion, lifting the total to roughly $270 billion. “Even though the trend now appears to be reversing, it remains too timid, and more will be needed to push Bitcoin (BTC) toward new highs,” the analyst wrote in a market update. Large holders are re-engaging, but at half speed. Wallets moving more than $1 million in stablecoins onto Binance lifted their 30-day inflows to $30.5 billion, more than 40% above the $21.7 billion recorded a little over a month earlier, yet well short of the more than $61 billion that same cohort moved at its October 2025 peak, nearly double the current pace. Darkfost read the hesitation as capital caught between a heavily anticipated October and an environment defined by conflict, inflation and steadily rising bond yields. That gap helps explain why the monthly rally attempt has lacked follow-through even with seasonality on its side. Not every long-horizon framework shares the caution: one power-law model published this week still projects room toward $157,800.

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Wrote in a market update.

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ETF Demand Cools as the Mt. Gox Clock Runs

Institutional demand is the second headwind, and the flow record shows a clean fade. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs pulled in $998.95 million on September 21, their largest single-day haul in almost a year, then shrank for five straight sessions to $31.07 million by September 28. On September 30 the funds posted $148.69 million in net outflows, ending a nine-day inflow streak, and October opened on a weak footing: $102.67 million in net inflows on October 1 and only $51.25 million collected across the four sessions from September 28 through October 1, against $2.39 billion the week before. Trading activity thinned in step, with daily value traded across the 12 funds sliding from $4.57 billion on September 21 to $1.97 billion on October 1. Our running tally puts the opening of October at $134.4 million in net inflows, positive but a fraction of late September's pace. Geopolitics adds the third pressure, and it cuts both ways. On October 2 the coin rallied toward $87,000 before a tanker strike in the Strait of Hormuz erased the move, the sixth attack on shipping in a week; oil barely moved while crypto sold off hard. Washington has sent two additional Patriot missile batteries to protect Saudi and Qatari energy sites, Iran says the strait stays closed until the US meets seven conditions from a June deal, and US officials have indicated Trump expects to resume strikes after the November 3 midterms. Peace signals push price the other way: Bitcoin climbed past $81,000 when Trump weighed ending the war, after a week of macro whiplash had already lifted it back above $85,000. The fourth pressure lands at month-end. On-chain records show Mt. Gox's labeled wallets still hold 34,387.51 BTC worth about $2.88 billion, and the trustee must finish creditor repayments by October 31 under the current court-approved deadline. Last year the extension was announced on October 27, four days before the cutoff, so the same late-window decision could repeat.

The through-line we see is that October's 12.73% median gain has historically been paid for by the same two flows now running on fumes, and the Mt. Gox record is the one datapoint that cannot be argued with: on-chain data shows 34,387.51 BTC worth about $2.88 billion still parked in labeled wallets, with the court filing giving the trustee until October 31. That deadline resolves in one of two ways. An extension keeps the coins off the market, while distribution hands creditors BTC they may sell or HODL. If ETF creations and stablecoin issuance do not reaccelerate before that decision, buyers absorbing any distribution risk turning into exit liquidity, and October 2025's 3.69% loss, not the 12.73% median, becomes the closer analogue.