Halloween came early for crypto. After a week of red candles, the market snapped back over the weekend with $339 million in short liquidations; but the rebound has not killed the fear. Bitcoin trades at $111,000 and Ethereum at $4,080; both up 4-5% in 24 hours.
And yet, the market is not convinced. Funding rates stayed negative six of the past seven days, currently at −0.004%. That is classic disbelief: the higher price climbs, the more shorts get stacked. Every short is future buy pressure if the price keeps going up.
Data from Polymarket perfectly mirrors the optimism. The odds of Bitcoin hitting $100,000 in October have collapsed to below 25%. And this happens as spot Bitcoin ETFs bled $1.23 billion last week, and Ethereum ETFs lost $311.8 million. Outflows kill narrative momentum, but they also build powder for contrarian squeezes.
Bitcoin at $111,000 as BlackRock pushes new Bitcoin ETP in London
As Bitcoin holds the line at $111,000, the path forward is defined by liquidation heatmaps, with $113,000 and $126,000 the obvious zones where shorts will get “smoked” big time should bulls keep pressing.
Whales are playing both sides. One of the oldest Bitcoin traders just dropped $30 million USDC onto HyperLiquid and opened a 700 BTC short, equal to around $76 million, at an entry of $109,133, with liquidation up at $150,080. The position screams conviction — or desperation. If the BTC price grinds higher, it is fuel for a short squeeze.
In the meantime, price aside, BlackRock’s U.K. Bitcoin ETP started trading in London today after the FCA loosened its ban on crypto-linked products. British institutional players now get a regulated gateway into BTC, while U.S. ETFs were bleeding $1.23 billion last week alone. It will be interesting to see if the trend “in the ends” will be different to the original BlackRock Bitcoin ETF on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
XRP in focus as Ripple CLO heads to Washington
XRP is back at $2.46 after recovering its losses from last week. But today’s spotlight for the fourth biggest cryptocurrency is not price action — it is politics.
As revealed by Eleanor Terrett, Ripple CLO Stuart Alderoty is confirmed for a Senate roundtable this Wednesday, hosted by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. He will not be alone. Chief executives from Coinbase, Chainlink, Galaxy, Kraken, Uniswap, Circle, Solana Institute, Jito and a16z Crypto are also on the list. The topic is straightforward: market structure legislation and DeFi regulation.
For Ripple, this is prime-time exposure in Washington just as the company pushes for parity with banks in the U.S. financial system. Headlines from Capitol Hill can light a fuse for XRP either way. The token enthusiasts who lived through past SEC vs. Ripple swings know policy is as much of a driver as charts — whether they like it or not.
Mt. Gox Halloween deadline looms with $34,689 BTC at stake
While everyone was busy with “Black Friday,” Oct. 31 unexpectedly came back on the radar not only as the date of Halloween but as the date for Mt. Gox creditor repayments.
Trustee wallets of the infamous crypto exchange still hold 34,689 BTC, worth about $3.8 billion. History shows that about 64.1% of distributed BTC end up on exchanges. That worst-case math points to 22,253 BTC, or $2.4 billion at the current price hitting the market.
But there is the silver lining: distributions are staggered. Bitstamp and Kraken need 60-90 days to process payouts. So, the dump narrative of $2.4 billion hitting in one night does not hold.
Still, the ghost of Mt. Gox oversupply hangs over traders. Even staggered sales keep a lid on rallies, especially while ETF flows are negative. With Bitcoin hovering near $111,000, any new supply shock cuts deeper. That is why Oct. 31 is not just Halloween; it is really a fear anchor.
Binance stunned by $500 million outflow, while Amazon outage knocks Coinbase offline
Two of the largest crypto platforms faced hits on the same day.
On Binance, Whale Alert revealed a $497 million USDT withdrawal to an unknown wallet. It is one of the biggest stablecoin exits of the year. Market participants are asking: Did someone take profit? Are there more stablecoins to flow out of Binance? Can the black-and-yellow crypto exchange remain solvent if so?
Meanwhile, Coinbase got dragged down by an AWS outage that also crippled Signal, Zoom, Amazon, McDonald’s, Disney and Snapchat. Coinbase users could not log in, trade or withdraw for hours.
These outages are rare but brutal — they expose how fragile crypto access remains when Web2 infrastructure breaks. What’s more important is that, historically, they tend to cause corrections in the market.
Evening outlook
Into the close of U.S. trading, the market is fragile but primed for headlines. Key points:
- Bitcoin: Liquidity pools sit at $113,000 and $126,000. Support zones below are $109,000 and $108,000. A squeeze higher is still the path of most pain.
- Ethereum: Needs to defend $4,000 to avoid losing the bounce.
- XRP: $2.40 is the must-hold level. Capitol Hill roundtable midweek can shift the entire outlook in one headline.
- Mt. Gox: Oct. 31 deadline remains in focus. Even staggered, $2.4 billion worth of BTC is a ghost that traders cannot ignore.
- Fear and Greed Index at 29 means disbelief still dominates. History says that is when upside breakouts cut the deepest.
