Bitcoin kicks off new quarter in the old $82,000-$85,000 price range

It’s new quarter, but same old bitcoin BTC$83,909.16 price range. The cryptocurrency is still stuck between $82,000 and $85,000, extending more than a week of choppy, sideways price action.

Prices briefly topped $85,000 on Wednesday after weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation cooled bets on Fed rate hikes, But bulls couldn’t hold the move and spot ETFs didn’t help.

The U.S.-listed ETFs registered a net outflow of $148.7 million on Wednesday, ending a nine-day inflows streak that pulled in $3.08 billion, according to data source SoSoValue. That was the biggest inflow streak of the year in dollar terms.

Moreover, the streak was fading before it ended. Daily inflows peaked near $1 billion on Sept. 21 and steadily shrank over the following days. The pace of daily inflows needs to pick up for prices to continue rising, according to analysts at Bitfinex

“Daily pace remains the key determinant for clearing overhead supply,” analysts said in a market note.

The Bitfinex Absorption-to-Emission Ratio (BAER), a metric that divides the BTC bought by ETFs in a session by the roughly 450 BTC miners produce each day, has compressed from 25.6x on 21 September to 1.8x on 29 September.

“Absorbing the 1.39M BTC breakeven supply (which sits between $84,000 and $86,500) requires the BAER to recover toward 5.0x (~$190 million/day),” they said.

Alex Kuptsikevich, chief analyst at The FxPro, focused on macro factors.

“The persistence of the bond sell-off is a very worrying sign, capable of triggering a sell-off across all markets almost overnight. It is easy to find periods in history when turmoil in traditional finance has benefited crypto. Still, it is impossible to predict when the market will shift from caution to panic,” he said in an email.

In the meantime, smaller coins like Bitcoin Layer 2 network Stacks’ STX token are chalking out impressive gains. The token has risen by 25% in 24 hours. Several others like LIT, JST and ENA have risen by over 5%.

The broader altcoin story still remains selective. The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index is the only one up 1% in 24 hours. The Computing Select and CoinDesk 80 Indexes are up 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively, while the rest are slightly down.

Derivatives positioning

• BTC Open interest eased to $20.9B from $21.8B, and funding held broadly stable near 3% annualized across venues. The exception is the term structure: the 3-month annualized basis on Deribit picked up from under 5% to over 6%, a mild steepening that points to firmer demand for leveraged longs.
• Options 24-hour call/put ratio jumping to 83% in favour of calls (from 66/34). The 1-week delta skew eased to ~4% from ~15%, and the ATM term structure stays in contango but a touch lower – front end ~29.5%, long end ~40% out to mid-2027. A calm vol regime: heavy call flow, but little premium being paid for the upside.
• Coinglass data shows $100 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 50-50 split between longs and shorts. BTC (100 million), ETH ($51 million) and Others ($26 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $84,800 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price rise.

Token talk

• Stacks STX$0.3860 surged around 26% over 24 hours to $0.39, making it one of the strongest large-cap performers. The move coincides with Stacks founder Muneeb Ali being named CEO of Stacks Labs as the project pushes to expand adoption of its bitcoin staking products.
• Midnight NIGHT$0.04446 jumped around 23% over 24 hours to $0.04, extending a rally that has seen the privacy-focused token climb for several consecutive sessions. NIGHT is up about 7% since midnight UTC after gaining 21% on Wednesday.
• Ethena (ENA) and near protocol NEAR$5.1375 were also among the strongest performers, rising around 11% and 10%, respectively, over 24 hours. ENA traded near $0.27, extending its gain over the past week to more than 30%.
• Quant (QNT) continued its volatile run, trading around $290 and roughly 9% higher over 24 hours in some market snapshots. The interoperability token has now more than tripled over the past week after a series of sharp rallies and reversals.
• Avalanche (AVAX) and internet computer (ICP) bucked the broader strength, falling about 5% and 4%, respectively, over 24 hours. The declines reverse part of Tuesday’s recovery, when AVAX gained 7% since midnight and ICP added 8.3%.