Google’s Quantum Computing Update Stirs Old Crypto Fears

Bitcoin BTC$109,727.96 traded steadily near $109,000 during Thursday’s Asian hours, extending the broad range play since the Oct. 10 crash that wiped out $19 billion in leveraged bets and weakened risk sentiment.

Ether ETH$3,897.68 hovered near $3,850, with solana (SOL, XRP$2.4224, and ADA$0.6431 barely moving in the past 24 hours. The pause comes after a volatile start to October that has so far produced little progress for bulls or bears — and is on track to deliver the least gains for investors since 2015, despite being a seasonally bullish month.

The backdrop is as interesting as it is uneventful. The crypto market has been in what traders are calling “sell-the-growth mode,” where every small rally gets faded as liquidity thins and sentiment drifts.

The fear index is down to 25, one notch above “extreme fear.” Bitcoin’s been oscillating between its 50- and 200-day moving averages for nearly two weeks, each bounce getting sold faster than the last.

Even Google couldn’t move the market. The tech giant’s announcement of a “quantum advantage” with its Willow chip — a milestone some say brings the world closer to practical quantum computing — briefly reignited old anxieties about Bitcoin’s cryptographic foundations.

The idea is simple: Quantum computers could one day crack the cryptography that keeps Bitcoin secure. In reality, that’s still far off, as discussed in December last year, but it’s enough to remind traders how fragile confidence can be when everything else feels tired.

Still, with macro cues uncertain and the Federal Reserve’s Oct. 29 meeting looming, few are betting big in either direction.

“The market’s been balancing in this tight range, and that tells you how close we are to a bigger move,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro. “Either the bulls lose patience, or the bears run out of conviction.”

At this point, most traders are simply waiting for something to break — in price or in narrative. Even Google’s supposed quantum leap wasn’t enough to do it.

For a space built on speculation and narratives, indifference might be the most bearish signal of all.