Bitcoin slides below $82,000 as AI doubts return, with DeFi tokens leading declines

Bitcoin BTC$84,459.46 slid by the most in two weeks, losing as much as 2.9% since midnight UTC to below $82,000 after mixed earnings reports from Tesla TSLA and Meta Platforms META revived doubts over AI spending and sent equities lower in Asia.

Chinese stocks entered a bear market, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell more 3%, South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.5% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 2.7%. Nasdaq 100 index futures dropped 1.32% and S&P 500 futures 0.66%.

Altcoins fell even harder than bitcoin, with the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) recently down 3.2% compared with 2.5% for the CoinDesk 5 (CD5). Ether ETH$2,490.55 lost 2.6% to near $2,400. DeFi bore the brunt, with the sector index (DFX) sliding 5.6%.

Spot bitcoin ETFs took in more than $1 billion over the first three days of the week, according to SoSoValue data, and Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade went live overnight, though SOL fell 2.4% to around $104. U.S. jobless claims are due later today.

Derivatives positioning

• Crypto futures see churn: Trading in crypto derivatives surged 19% to $226.6 billion, even as open interest fell 2.46% to $141.8 billion and liquidations jumped 52% to $431.1 million. Traders were mostly closing bets, not opening new ones. Longs and shorts are split almost evenly, so the pain was not one-sided.
• BTC and ETH, majors see no new money: Volume jumped 36% for bitcoin and 27% for ether, yet open interest fell about as much as price did. That means the number of contracts held barely changed, and the dollar drop in open interest is mostly price. Traders were active, but they were not adding or cutting risk in size. Funding is barely positive, so there is no crowded bet on either side.
• ZEC, NEAR, UNI, LINK and SUI, altcoin longs are leaving: Open interest fell much faster than price in all five coins. ZEC is the clearest case, with open interest dropping 6.99% as the price fell 2.34%. NEAR (-8.83%) and UNI (-10.17%) showed the same pattern. Positions are likely being closed, not held through the dip.
• XAU, XAUT, XAG and CL, traders pile into commodity perps: Money is flowing into commodity contracts while crypto drains. Open interest in gold rose 12% even as its price slipped, which implies about 13% more contracts. Tokenized gold XAUT (+10%) and silver (+6.8%) show the same pattern. Rising open interest with a falling price means traders are adding shorts, or longs are buying the dip and paying to hold. Crude oil open interest is up 6.29% with negative funding of -0.0126%, so shorts are paying to stay in.
• OI-normalized CVD shows market-order selling has taken over: Some 24 hours ago, almost every token saw more market-order buying than selling, with the gap peaking in the middle of the night. That flipped in the morning, with market-order selling dominating across major tokens, including BTC and ETH.
• XMR is the outlier on the funding rates heatmap: Monero funding at around an annualized 70% is far above every other token. It shows that longs are paying a steep premium to hold, which is the kind of leverage build-up CoinDesk flagged on Wednesday. It is the one pocket of crowding in an otherwise quiet market, so it is the token to watch for a liquidation event if the price turns.
• Implied volatility gauges stay near yearly lows: Bitcoin’s BVIV and ether’s EVIV are hovering just above their 2026 lows. Options traders are not paying for big price swings, which points to a calm market.
• Calls dominate volume on Deribit: The $85,000 and $86,000 calls expiring Oct. 30 were the most traded bets on Deribit over the past 24 hours. Short-dated skews still favor puts, so downside protection costs more than upside bets. It seems traders want to chase a rally, but are not prepared to drop their hedges. Ether options show the same pattern.