Crypto Corner

Thursday, 2026-10-29 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Bitcoin slips back under $80,000 as Big Tech earnings spill into crypto. Bitcoin fell below $80,000 during Thursday's Asian session, erasing the rebound built up over the prior two days, after Samsung's chip unit and Alphabet both missed on parts of their third-quarter results and dragged global tech shares lower; the move compounds Wednesday's hawkish 10–2 Fed hold, with futures markets now pricing roughly 78% odds of a December rate hike. Crypto derivatives saw on the order of $356–370m in liquidations across exchanges, more than half from long positions, per CoinDesk's tally; ether eased in step, trading in the low-$2,300s. CoinDesk · GuruFocus

Markets & flows — ETFs, stablecoins & on-chain

Spot bitcoin ETFs string together a third inflow day – almost all of it one fund. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $137.3m net on October 28, per Farside/SoSoValue-sourced data, with BlackRock's IBIT supplying roughly $136m and Bitwise's BITB $1.3m while the other ten listed funds posted zero; spot ether ETFs moved the other way, shedding $21.4m the same day. It's a third straight green day for bitcoin funds but only a partial offset to October's broader outflow run. TokenPost · KuCoin, via Farside Investors

Strategy keeps buying through a record $21bn bitcoin gain, loses its CFO. Strategy's Q3 2026 results, released Thursday, show the company bought 7,218 BTC for $588.1m during the quarter (funded through at-the-market equity sales) and separately sold 5,552 BTC to help cover preferred-dividend and buyback obligations, leaving holdings at 848,517 BTC – up 26% year-to-date; a $20.91bn unrealized gain on that position drove quarterly net income to $19.53bn, which the company called its largest operating income ever, even as CFO Andrew Kang is set to step down November 5. Strategy press release · Benzinga

Nothing new on the stablecoin supply side – no de-peg, mint/burn event or attestation worth flagging in this window.

The industry — exchanges, miners & infrastructure

Coinbase misses on revenue but prediction markets cross a $200m run-rate. Coinbase's Q3 2026 revenue came in around $1.22bn, down from $1.87bn a year earlier as trading volumes cooled, but adjusted EPS of $0.27 beat a Street consensus call for a loss, and adjusted EBITDA of $333m was up 60% quarter-on-quarter; the company said prediction-markets revenue surpassed a $200m annualized run-rate and Coinbase One subscriptions hit an all-time high. Coinbase investor relations · Yahoo Finance

No hash-rate, hosting or AI-pivot news from Marathon, Riot, CleanSpark or peers cleared the bar this window.

Policy & regulation

A quiet 24 hours on the regulatory front – nothing new from the SEC, CFTC, Treasury/OFAC or the overseas regulators (MiCA, UK FCA, Hong Kong SFC, Singapore MAS, Japan FSA).

The Chatter

Ki Young Ju, CryptoQuant founder & CEO (X): argues bitcoin's "bear cycle is over," pointing to cooling on-chain profit-taking signals and calling for prices to grind higher or move sideways over the next 12–24 months rather than naming a target – a notable reversal from the more cautious, bear-into-2027 read he'd floated only weeks earlier, and still the most-argued on-chain call circulating this week – his own cycle read, not advice. CoinOtag

Otherwise a thin window for freshly argued essays – the sharper takes this week were trained on today's Fed and earnings prints already covered above rather than offering a new independent thesis.