Crypto Corner

Friday, 2026-10-02 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Bitcoin pushes past $87,000 on a much-weaker-than-expected jobs report, builds bullish leverage, then gives back the gains. Bitcoin had already crossed $86,500 Friday morning as perpetual open interest jumped roughly $2.3bn and funding rates climbed, a sign traders were pre-positioning long; it then briefly topped $87,000 after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just 29,000 nonfarm payrolls added in September — well below the roughly 90,000–98,000 consensus — with unemployment rising to 4.2% and July/August payrolls revised down a combined 60,000. The softer labor data cooled Fed rate-hike odds, but CoinDesk's live blog reported bitcoin reversing a large chunk of its early gains later in the session as the relief rally faded. CoinDesk · CoinDesk · CoinDesk live updates

Bitcoin dominance closes in on 60% as USDT's share of total crypto market cap slips to 6.3%. CoinDesk reads the shift — capital rotating out of dollar-pegged stablecoin parking and into bitcoin rather than broadly into alts — as a market growing more comfortable with risk, a day after bitcoin and ether both logged their best quarters in years. CoinDesk

Markets & flows — ETFs, stablecoins & on-chain

Bitcoin ETFs bounce back to a $103m net inflow on October 1 after Tuesday's streak-ending outflow; ether funds add $81m. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in roughly $103m net on October 1, per SoSoValue data, with BlackRock's IBIT leading at $196m and Grayscale's mini BTC fund adding $14.6m, against a $60.7m redemption from Fidelity's FBTC. Spot ether ETFs added about $81m the same day, led by Fidelity's FETH ($36.8m) and BlackRock's ETHA ($26.2m), with Grayscale's ETHE adding a further $3.6m — both complexes recovering from Tuesday's nine-day bitcoin streak snap. KuCoin, via SoSoValue

The industry — exchanges, miners & infrastructure

Blast, once a $2.2bn Ethereum layer-2, announces it is shutting down as costs outrun revenue. Founder Tieshun "Pacman" Roquerre told users Friday the chain's upkeep costs now exceed what it earns and that there is "no credible path to making the chain economically sustainable" — Unchained reported Blast's trailing 24-hour revenue at just $110; total value locked had already collapsed roughly 97% from its 2024 peak. Users have until October 26 to withdraw funds to Ethereum mainnet. CryptoTimes · crypto.news

Update: Bitget completes its phased withdrawal restoration as P2P and the last frozen asset classes reopen at 08:00 UTC. Peer-to-peer trading and the remaining withdrawal types came back online as scheduled Friday, the final step in the phase-out that began with BTC withdrawals on September 28 following the exchange's $387.5m hot-wallet breach (reported here September 28–30). CryptoTimes

Policy & regulation

Hester Peirce, the SEC's "Crypto Mom," officially leaves the Commission today. Peirce's resignation, dated September 21 and posted to X, takes effect October 2; she directed the SEC's Crypto Task Force since February 2025 and was the agency's most consistent advocate for rules-based crypto regulation over an eight-year tenure. Her departure leaves just two commissioners, Chair Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda, both Republicans, with no confirmed successor named; she is set to join Regent University's law school in November. KuCoin

A community-bank trade group sues the OCC over national trust charters granted to crypto firms. The Independent Community Bankers of America filed suit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, arguing it exceeded its National Bank Act authority in chartering crypto-linked trust banks — including entities tied to Coinbase, Circle and Crypto.com — that perform bank-like custody and fiduciary functions without the capital and compliance burden full banks carry. A ruling against the OCC could slow or unwind the charter pipeline that firms such as Ripple, BitGo and Paxos have also used to gain national reach. CoinDesk

The Chatter

Mike Richardson, Bitcoin News Digest (Substack, Oct 2): argues today's jobs-report miss — 29,000 payrolls against a roughly 90,000–98,000 consensus, unemployment up to 4.2%, and a combined 60,000-job downward revision to July and August — is the macro release that actually moved bitcoin this week, framing the cooling labor market as the dovish catalyst behind the push through $87,000, ahead of the ETF flows or technical levels he'd flagged as secondary. Bitcoin News Digest on Substack

Beyond that, nothing from the usual crypto-research voices (Arthur Hayes, Lyn Alden, Nic Carter, Galaxy's Alex Thorn, Glassnode, CryptoQuant, Bankless, Messari, Delphi) cleared the bar this window with a fresh, dated take on the day's news — fewer items beats padding.