Crypto Corner

Tuesday, 2026-10-27 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Bitcoin slips back under $80,000 as the Fed's two-day meeting opens. Bitcoin traded near $79,600–79,700 Tuesday, below its 50-day average, while ether eased to roughly $2,310–2,335; CME's FedWatch tool puts the odds of a hold at Wednesday's decision (2pm ET) near 90%, so traders are watching how hawkish Chair Kevin Warsh sounds on a possible December move rather than the outcome itself. FxPro's Alex Kuptsikevich flagged a volatility squeeze – bitcoin's 30-day range has compressed from 13% to 6% after two weeks pinned between $80,000 and $86,000 – the kind of setup that has preceded sharp moves before; he reads the break of May and September support zones as a bearish signal, a view CoinDesk's own daybook countered with Galaxy's Alex Thorn (see The Chatter). CoinDesk Daybook · CoinDesk

Markets & flows — ETFs, stablecoins & on-chain

Bitcoin ETFs snap back to a $110m inflow, all of it into one fund. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $110.3m on October 26, every dollar of it into BlackRock's IBIT while every other listed product recorded zero, per Farside Investors data – a one-fund bounce after back-to-back outflows of $635.6m and $137.9m the prior week that still leaves the group a net seller for October. Ether ETFs went the other way, shedding $88.6m the same day. Blockchain.News, via Farside Investors · TokenPost, via SoSoValue

Strategy sits out a second straight week, funding buybacks instead of bitcoin. Strategy bought no bitcoin in the week of October 19–25 for the second week running, per its Monday SEC filing, instead spending $204.9m of USD cash repurchasing its STRC preferred stock; USD Reserve and USD cash stood at $4.83bn and $242.4m respectively as of October 25, with $1.0bn still available under the separate MSTR buyback program. Holdings are unchanged at 848,517 BTC. The company reports Q3 earnings after the close on October 29. SEC EDGAR, Strategy Inc. 8-K

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

Bernstein reshuffles its crypto-stock targets ahead of earnings. The broker kept Outperform ratings on Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle but cut Coinbase's price target to $250 from $330 on softer trading volumes (shares near $162, down more than 31% year-to-date); it held its $160 Robinhood target while modeling $1.7bn of prediction-market revenue by 2028, and raised Circle's target to $145 from $140 on expected support from Arc token presales, even as Mizuho separately flagged up to 20% revenue risk to Circle from AI agents displacing payment flows. The Block

No bitcoin-miner-specific news (hash rate, hosting or AI-pivot deals) cleared the bar this window.

Policy & regulation

No material SEC, CFTC, Treasury/OFAC or overseas (MiCA, UK FCA, Hong Kong SFC, Singapore MAS, Japan FSA) rulemaking, approval or enforcement action crossed the bar today.

The Chatter

Alex Thorn, Galaxy's head of firmwide research (via CoinDesk's Crypto Daybook): argues the bear market already ended in June and that bitcoin is now in an accumulation phase, pushing back on same-day bearish technical reads – his own cycle call, not a house view. CoinDesk Daybook

Jason Calacanis, All-In podcast host and tech investor (X, via CoinDesk): argues bitcoin will retest its roughly $57,000 cycle low within 12 months and never set a new all-time high, telling followers to sell and rotate into AI because "no one is trying to convince people to buy Bitcoin anymore" – his own call, and one outlets note he makes while holding Bittensor's TAO token. CoinDesk