Bitcoin is starting the new quarter in familiar territory, remaining trapped between $82,000 and $85,000 after more than a week of choppy, sideways price action.
Prices briefly topped $85,000 on Wednesday following weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation data, which cooled expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes. However, bulls could not sustain the move.
U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs registered a net outflow of $148.7 million on Wednesday, ending a nine-day inflows streak that had pulled in $3.08 billion. This nine-day streak was the largest inflow period of the year by dollar terms, though daily inflows peaked near $1 billion on September 21 and gradually declined in subsequent days.
Analysts at Bitfinex noted that the daily pace of inflows remains critical for prices to advance. The Bitfinex Absorption-to-Emission Ratio (BAER), which measures ETF bitcoin purchases relative to daily miner production of roughly 450 BTC, compressed from 25.6x on September 21 to 1.8x on September 29. According to Bitfinex, the ratio needs to recover toward 5.0x, equivalent to approximately $190 million daily in inflows, to absorb the 1.39 million BTC in breakeven supply sitting between $84,000 and $86,500.
Macro concerns weighed on sentiment. Alex Kuptsikevich, chief analyst at FxPro, flagged the persistence of bond market selling as a potential risk. He cautioned that while periods of turmoil in traditional finance have historically benefited crypto, predicting when markets will shift from caution to panic remains difficult.
Altcoin activity remained uneven. The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index was the only major index advancing, up 1% in 24 hours. Other indexes showed minimal movement, with the Computing Select and CoinDesk 80 Indexes up 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.
Among individual tokens, Stacks (STX) surged approximately 26%, reaching $0.39, coinciding with founder Muneeb Ali's appointment as CEO of Stacks Labs. Midnight (NIGHT) jumped around 23% to $0.04, extending a multi-day rally. Ethena (ENA) and Near Protocol (NEAR) gained roughly 11% and 10%, respectively. Quant (QNT) rose about 9% to around $290.
Avalanche (AVAX) and Internet Computer (ICP) declined approximately 5% and 4%, respectively, reversing part of Tuesday's gains.
Open interest in Bitcoin derivatives eased to $20.9 billion from $21.8 billion, with funding rates remaining stable near 3% annualized. Options positioning showed a 24-hour call-to-put ratio of 83% favoring calls. Liquidations totaled $100 million over 24 hours, split evenly between longs and shorts, with Bitcoin accounting for $100 million of the total.
