Morning Minute: Bitcoin Clears $120,000 as Uptober Begins with a Bang

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors continue to grind up as Bitcoin breaks $120,000
• BNB hits new ATH over $1,100 kicking off BNB SZN (Cake + memes soar)
• CME 24/7 will launch 24/7 crypto futures and options trading in early 2026
• Moonbirds tease BIRB token for first time, floor passes 4 ETH before retracing
• Art Blocks announces Quine by Larva Labs as final Art Blocks Curated

🟠 Bitcoin Clears $120K as Uptober Starts With a Bang

The bears were loudly calling for $90k before $120k. Their “guts” said crypto had topped.

Well, looks like they were wrong.

📌 What Happened

BTC pushed above $120,000 on Thursday, hitting a level not seen since August 13.

That’s a full 10% up move on the week.

So what’s driving the action?

ETFs inflows are certainly helping, with over $2.25B in inflows so far this week.

The other key factor?

Saylor’s tax bill (or lack thereof).

Strategy and the rest of the U.S. got news on Wednesday that a Biden-era AMT tax of up to 15% on unrealized asset gains would not come to fruition, as digital assets were excluded.

That likely freed up a lot of cash for Saylor and it will be very interesting to see next Monday if he has indeed put that to work this week (or maybe it was more ETF driven).

Plus the government shut down means no more economic data to come before FOMC, likely meaning a rate cut is a done deal (90% on Polymarket).

But it wasn’t just Bitcoin.

Taking a look at the rest of the majors and their weekly gains:

• ETH +15% to $4,480
• BNB + 18% to $1,100 (new ATH)
• SOL +20% to $230

And some other top winners on the week:

• Zcash + 180% to $151
• PUMP +42% to $0.00714
• SPX +33% to $1.28

So while Bitcoin is grinding up, it’s not a Bitcoin-led rally. All the majors are moving.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“The steep rise in the gold price over the past month has made bitcoin more attractive to investors relative to gold, especially as the bitcoin to gold volatility ratio keeps drifting lower to below 2.0. By taking into account this volatility ratio, which implies that bitcoin currently consumes 1.85 times more risk capital than gold, then mechanically the market cap of bitcoin at $2.3tr currently would have to rise by close to 42% (implying a theoretical bitcoin price of $165k), to match on a vol-adjusted basis the around $6tr of total private sector investment in gold via ETFs or bars and coins… …This mechanical exercise thus could imply significant upside for bitcoin.” – JPMorgan

🧠 Why It Matters

Breaking $120k again sure feels good.

And the speed of its reclaim, along with October seasonality + the broader q4 setup (more rate cuts, more money printing) seems like a very strong one for higher.

Don’t just take my word for it though.

Major banks have put out some serious forecasts for Bitcoin’s near and mid-term future.

• Citi: $133K by year-end, $181K in 12 months, driven by ETF demand and broader adoption
• JPMorgan: ~$165K on a catch-up trade versus gold and the “debasement trade”

Great point by JPMorgan there, as Bitcoin has been seriously lagging Gold over all of 2025.

Simply catching Gold on yearly increase (+45% on the year) would mean another 16% from here for Bitcoin ($140,000), and that doesn’t take into account any other factors.

The writing is on the wall for a big October (Uptober).

Now we just have to fade any big monkey wrenches or (bad) surprises…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green again, as Bitcoin breaks $120k; BTC +1% at $120,350, ETH +2% at $4,480, XRP +2% at $3.03, SOL +2% at $230
• CAKE (+24%), ETHFI (+15%) and ASTER (+8%) led top movers
• BNB hit a new ATH over $1,100 while Pancake Swap (CAKE) was the top mover on the day and BNB memes outperformed
• Trump said he is considering giving taxpayer rebates of $1,000-$2,000 using tariff money
• The Bitcoin ETFs have seen $2.25B in net inflows so far this week, with ETH seeing $1.06B
• The CME is set to launch 24/7 crypto futures and options trading in early 2026
• In Arthur Hayes’ latest blog he argues Eurozone money printing could drive the next leg up for Bitcoin
• New York lawmakers moved to tax Bitcoin miners, proposing an energy-use excise tax to fund affordability programs
• FG Nexus is partnering with Securitize to tokenize Nasdaq-listed equities on Ethereum, offering on-chain stock trading with real-time settlement

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

• Avalanche Treasury Co. announced a $675M SPAC merger with Mountain Lake, creating a public vehicle to accumulate $200M AVAX from the Foundation with more plans to add $1B AVAX post-IPO

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are mostly red; DOGE -1%, Shiba -2%, PEPE -1%, PENGU -3%, BONK -3%, TRUMP even, SPX +5%, and FARTCOIN -5%
• BSC memes exploded led by 4 (+100% to $140M), Giggle (+140% to $80M), 1 (+550% to $9M), Priceless (+250% to $21M) and PUP (+43x to $4M)

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

• DoubleZero launched its mainnet beta, effectively providing a new internet for blockchains to communicate (2Z token at $5.2B fdv)
• Sui TVL hit a new ATH at $2.43B, now 9th amongst all blockchains
• Moonbirds teased the BIRB token coming soon on Solana, which briefly drove Moonbirds NFTs over 4 ETH before retracing (now 3.24 ETH)
• Justin Sun touted Tron’s perps exchange “SunPerp” with private dark pools and subsidized fees as Tron’s answer to Hyperliquid and Aster

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks even at 47.3 ETH, Pudgy -4% at 9.5, BAYC -5% at 8.3 ETH; Hypurr’s even at 1,520 HYPE
• Memeland Potatoz +23% were a notable top mover
• Art Blocks announced the final Art Blocks Curated release titled ‘ Quine’ from Larva Labs; 500 total supply, 477 available and starting at 0.25 ETH, coming Oct 9
• OpenSea added $500k to its prize pool on Thursday across 5 different memecoins
• A gold Plush Pepe sold for ~$50,000 on Thursday as TON NFTs continue to see success