From Uptober to Spooky Szn? Bitcoin Cuts September Gains in Half

October, known as Uptober in crypto circles, is supposed to be the month Bitcoin gives investors their biggest gains—but the crypto market looks poised to flip the script once again.

Bitcoin today is sliding again, with a 2.67% drop in the last 24 hours to $81,125, nearly erasing half of the crypto asset’s gains in September. The movements are essentially the inverse of typically reliable historical patterns: a “Red September” followed by Uptober—yet, ironically, the same trend-breaking pattern occurred last year.

As far as potential reasons for Bitcoin’s sagging price of late, BTC currently has a macro backdrop working against it.

Wall Street retreated from record highs on Wednesday as Brent crude hovered near $100 a barrel and Treasury yields stayed near their highest since 2002, while the minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting showed most officials expect another rate hike before year end.

These headwinds have been weighing on Bitcoin for some time now. Yesterday’s downward move for BTC is slowing down but not stopping. Bitcoin yesterday sold off alongside stocks and gold, but still flagged a bullish daily chart against a bearish four-hour chart.

That split is still there today.

Bitcoin price: the daily trend holds, with less cushion

Today’s daily candle opened at $83,310.16, and wasn’t able to go much higher, barely touching $83,475.78, only to drop to lows at around $81,337, down 2.37%. That low undercut the $82,776.30 floor flagged yesterday and left BTC below a short-term price zone $82,626.41

Bitcoin moved sideways between roughly $83,000 and $87,000 for more than two weeks after the $87,354.33 peak on Sept. 21, and now trades about 5.6% below it.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, measures trend strength regardless of direction, and readings above 25 confirm a trend. The daily ADX is 40.7, down from 42.8 yesterday, with buying pressure (+DI) still ahead of selling pressure (-DI), but slowly cooling down the bullish sentiment.

The 50-day exponential moving average, or EMA, which weighs the price of an asset over the last 50 days, remains above the 200-day EMA, which traders read as an intact long-term uptrend. The golden cross, arguably the quintessential bullish signal in technical analysis, remains in play on the daily trend, but is starting to recede on the intra-day timeframes, with Bitcoin approaching the EMA200 line.

Momentum is softer than the trend strength suggests, with the Relative Strength Index, or RSI, which gauges buying and selling pressure on a 0-to-100 scale, falling to 45.8 from 52.5 yesterday, a bit below the 50 points line that separates bullish from bearish momentum. The Squeeze Momentum Indicator is still on, meaning volatility is compressed like a coiled spring ahead of a bigger move.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $484.9 million on Oct. 7, their worst day since June, per ETF flow data on Decrypt. That one session erased about 81% of the $595.3 million that flowed in over the previous nine and cut the 10-day net to $110.4 million. Cumulative net inflows still stand at $57.8 billion, so it is a dent, not an exodus, so far.

Leverage amplified the move, with roughly $429 million in positions liquidated over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, 87.5% of them longs. A liquidation happens when an exchange force-closes a leveraged trade that can no longer cover its losses, and that forced selling can push price lower still.

Bitcoin accounted for $135.51 million and Ethereum $96.14 million, and nearly half of the total, $202.24 million, hit in the last four hours. That is less than half of yesterday’s $969 million, yet it shows longs are still getting flushed.

What to watch next

A daily close below $82,626.41 would confirm a break of a weak support and the continuation of a short bearish correction, while a close back above it would keep the multi-week range in play.

Below sits the golden zone between the $81,165.95 to $79,705.49, where pullbacks within uptrends often draw buyers, and the daily trend band’s upper edge at $79,661.95 lands within about $44 of that zone’s lower border.

Oil and Hormuz shipping headlines, Treasury yields, daily ETF flows and the Fed’s Oct. 27-28 meeting, where a hike looks unlikely, are the next catalysts to watch.