This is the archived brief for October 26, 2026: price and forecast as of that morning. Open today’s

Monday, October 26, 2026

Bitcoin on October 26, 2026: daily brief and outlook

Overnight brief · Oct 26, 1:50 AM ET · price at release $80,172Two briefs a day: overnight at 1:30 AM ET and in the morning at 9:00 AM ET, half an hour before the US stock market opens

Overnight, as of 1:40 AM ET on Monday, Oct 26, Bitcoin traded at $80,172, down 0.8% in 24 hours.

Sunday's daily candle closed at $80,154, a fourth straight down day, and the Asian session held a tight $79,369⁠–⁠80,386 range without reclaiming the 50-day moving average.
The base case for the next 24 hours is sideways action in $79,000⁠–⁠81,500 with balanced risk either way: Trump deferred a strike on Iran on Sunday, oil slipped 1⁠–⁠2% into the US morning and S&P futures rose half a percent, yet buyers were in no hurry ahead of Wednesday's Fed decision, and neither the ETFs nor Strategy had yet responded to Saturday's dip to $79,100.
Polymarket's median for Tuesday was $80,225, almost exactly the price at publication.

Price when the brief was released

$80,172

Oct 26, 1:50 AM ET

Bitcoin price prediction for October 26, 2026

Three scenarios for the day with probabilities. Recorded in the morning and never edited: checked against the close in the Accuracy section.

base case

Sideways

$79,000–$81,500

50%

30%

20%

Resistance

$80,800
$81,700
$82,500

Support

$79,100
$78,400
$77,600

Sideways · 50%

$79,000–$81,500

Ahead of Wednesday's Fed decision the market is reluctant to take a position: DVOL at 38.3 and daily volatility near 1.2% price in no sharp moves, the near-dated Oct 26⁠–⁠27 expiries with max pain at $80,000⁠–⁠80,500 pull the price toward the middle of the range, and Saturday's $815 million long washout has already cleared the excess leverage. Polymarket's median for Tuesday is $80,225 with half of outcomes in $78,820⁠–⁠81,475: the prediction market sees the same range. Overhead, the 50-day EMA at $80,801 and the ETFs' average entry near $80,200 cap the upside, while below, the $79,500⁠–⁠80,500 zone has held four times.

Pullback · 30%

$77,500–$79,000

MACD is deepening for a third day, 68.5% of accounts are long with funding above average, retail is sending coins to exchanges at the fastest pace in six months, and stablecoin supply is not growing. If the ETFs post a third day of outflows on Monday or Strategy reports no purchase, a break of Saturday's $79,107 low opens the way to $78,400 and the $78,000 max pain of the main Oct 30 expiry; Polymarket gives 44% odds of touching $77,500 in October. An added risk is a collapse of Qatar's mediation and a new strike on Iran.

Breakout · 20%

$81,500–$83,000

Oil is retreating from its highs, S&P futures are rising after the Iran strike was deferred, and 95% odds of a Fed hold make Wednesday less daunting. ETF inflows on Monday and a fresh Strategy purchase would lift the price back above the 50-day EMA; two-week fractals produced gains in five of six cases. Against it stand resistance at $81,700 (50-day SMA) and $82,500 (the top of last week's trading zone), 76.5% odds of a December rate hike and negative momentum.

What to watch today

The US cash open at 9:30 AM ET and the first Bitcoin ETF flows after the dip to $79,100 (data due Monday night)
Strategy's weekly purchase report (the 8-K usually lands Monday before the open)
Deribit expiry at 4:00 AM ET, max pain $80,500; daily candle close at 8:00 PM ET (00:00 UTC)
Qatar's talks in Tehran and any Trump statements on Iran; the path of Brent
Tuesday, Oct 27 at 8:30 AM ET: US durable goods orders; Israel's election
Wednesday, Oct 28 at 2:00 PM ET: Fed decision, with Chair Warsh's press conference at 2:30 PM ET; Thursday, Oct 29 at 8:30 AM ET: Q3 GDP and September PCE; Friday, Oct 30 at 4:00 AM ET: the $10.9 billion expiry

This is not investment advice. The forecast is recorded at release and never edited: 24 hours later it is checked in the “Accuracy” section.

Daily brief

Nine topics, three key facts each. Every fact links to its primary source.

1Price and market

As of 1:40 AM ET on Oct 26, Bitcoin traded at $80,172: down 0.8% in 24 hours, 2.2% on the week and 5.0% on the month.Binance
Sunday's daily candle closed at $80,154 (-0.9%), a fourth consecutive down day after $81,416, $81,189 and $80,888; from the 8:00 PM ET candle close the price moved in a $79,369⁠–⁠80,386 range through the Asian session.Binance
The 24-hour range was $79,369⁠–⁠80,952 and spot volume in Binance's BTC/USDT pair came to 8,419 BTC ($676 million), a quiet overnight session for a Monday.Binance

6 more facts

The week's low was $79,107 at 11:25 AM ET Saturday, Oct 24, on a wave of liquidations, and the high was $84,856 on Wednesday, Oct 21, a $5,749 weekly range; Saturday's close at $80,770 was the lowest since Sep 17.Bitcoin News Digest
Bitcoin settled below its 50-day moving average near $81,700 and was heading for its first monthly loss since June, down about 5% since the start of October.Investing.com
Bitcoin's market cap stood at $1.61 trillion with 60.0% dominance in a $2.68 trillion crypto market; the price was 36.4% below the $126,080 all-time high of Oct 6, 2025.CoinGecko
Altcoins were mixed on Sunday: ETH $2,332 (-0.5%), XRP $1.29 (+1.5%), SOL $100.7 (+0.3%), BNB $738 (+1.5%); Ether lost 3.4% on the week and is down more than 21% year to date.Investing.com
The Coinbase premium over Binance was -$10 (-0.01%): US buyers did not stand out overnight and the venues traded almost in line.Coinbase
In other currencies Bitcoin was worth €71,446, ¥534,937 (CNY) and 6.53 million rubles per CoinGecko at 1:27 AM ET.CoinGecko

2Technical analysis

Daily RSI(14) was 41.8, below the neutral 50 line and below its own 47.5 average: momentum is bearish but far from oversold territory (30).Binance
MACD printed -416 against a -52 signal line, with the histogram at -363 and deepening for a third day; the bearish cross of Oct 22 has yet to play out.Binance
The price sat below the 20-day EMA ($81,944) and the 50-day EMA ($80,801); the nearest moving-average supports are the 200-day EMA at $76,469 and the 50-week MA at $75,811, while the 50/200 golden cross of Sep 14 remains intact.Binance

7 more facts

The 200-day SMA was $72,988 and the Mayer Multiple 1.10 (57th percentile historically); the 200-week average was $67,163, with the price 19.4% above it, and Pi Cycle Top read 0.49, half-way to a top signal.CoinLab
The $79,500⁠–⁠80,500 zone has held four times already, with $78,400, $77,876 and $76,000⁠–⁠76,600 below it; resistance sits at $81,500⁠–⁠82,500, where most of last week's trading took place.Bitcoin News Digest
A daily close below $79,000 would open the way to $75,000, while a move back above $82,000 would be the first sign of improvement; heavier resistance lies at $85,000⁠–⁠87,000.Crypto
Fractals: the two-week window (-4.1% since Oct 12) resembles six historical stretches, five of which were followed by gains with a median next move of +9.2%; the 50-day window rose in only three of six cases with a median of -1.6%.CoinLab
Polymarket for Oct 27: median price $80,225, half of outcomes in $78,820⁠–⁠81,475, a 54.5% chance of finishing above $80,000 and 14.5% above $82,000; our base-case range of $79,000⁠–⁠81,500 matches the prediction market's expectations.Polymarket
CoinLab's "market temperature" read 34 out of 100: MVRV 1.48, Mayer 1.10, Fear & Greed 50 and RSI 42 add up to a cool but not cold market.CoinLab
Implied volatility (DVOL) was 38.3% annualized versus 38.8% a week earlier, and K33 put daily volatility near 1.2%, close to historical lows, which is typical ahead of a Fed meeting.Deribit

3Derivatives

Liquidations over the 24 hours to 1:00 AM ET totaled $154 million across 62,000 traders: $118 million in longs and $36 million in shorts, with $33 million in Bitcoin and $43 million in Ether.Crypto
Saturday's washout was an order of magnitude larger: $815 million was liquidated across 201,012 traders in the 24 hours to Sunday, including $404 million in longs in the four hours to 1:00 PM ET.Bitcoin News Digest
Open interest in Binance BTC/USDT futures stood at 94,216 BTC ($7.55 billion), down 0.6% in 24 hours and 3.5% on the week, as leverage kept draining from the market.Binance

4 more facts

Aggregate open interest across the crypto market fell 2.2% over the weekend to $140.1 billion.Bitcoin News Digest
Binance funding was 0.0079% per 8 hours (8.6% annualized), above the 30-day average of 0.0035%; Hyperliquid was at 0.010%, OKX 0.0068% and Bybit 0.0029%, so longs were still paying shorts.Binance
The Binance long/short account ratio was 2.17 (68.5% long) and 1.63 among large traders; takers were selling slightly more than buying (0.93).Binance
The Binance perpetual mark price was $80,140 against an index of $80,180: the basis was negative, with no premium to spot.Binance

4Options

Deribit Bitcoin options open interest was 389,186 BTC ($31.2 billion) with a put/call ratio of 0.60, meaning nearly twice as many calls as puts.Deribit
The main expiry is Friday, Oct 30 at 4:00 AM ET (08:00 UTC): 135,840 BTC (about $10.9 billion, roughly 35% of total open interest), max pain $78,000, put/call 0.55.Crypto Briefing
Monday's 4:00 AM ET expiry covers 3,130 BTC with max pain at $80,500 and put/call of 1.01, and Tuesday's covers 1,984 BTC with max pain at $80,000: the near-dated expiries are pulling the price toward $80,000⁠–⁠80,500.Deribit

3 more facts

The Nov 27 expiry holds 37,358 BTC with max pain at $81,000, and the Dec 25 expiry 133,309 BTC with max pain at $75,000.Deribit
The one-standard-deviation range into Oct 30 was $77,600⁠–⁠83,835 (as of the Oct 25 snapshot); the largest strike was the $95,000 call with more than 23,000 BTC of open interest.Cryptoticker
Skew on the November series was -4.6%: puts were pricier than calls as traders paid for downside protection ahead of the Fed.Deribit

5ETFs and institutions

US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $137.9 million on Friday, Oct 23, a second straight day of outflows; the Oct 22 outflow of $635.6 million was the largest since June, with $471.6 million of it coming from IBIT and FBTC.The Block
The week of Oct 19⁠–⁠23 still closed with a $301.2 million net inflow thanks to $1.07 billion over its first three days; October to date shows an outflow of about $313.5 million, and cumulative inflows since launch stand at $57.25 billion.Bitcoin News Digest
The ETFs did not trade over the weekend, so the funds' response to the dip to $79,100 will only show in Monday's flows, with data due Monday night.The Block

6 more facts

Glassnode put the average entry price of ETFs and corporate treasuries at about $80,200 as of Oct 22: the market was sitting right at their breakeven.Bitcoin News Digest
Strategy holds 848,517 BTC at an average of $75,446; its latest purchase was 267 BTC for $22.1 million in the week to Oct 18, while $193.1 million went to buying back STRC preferred shares. The company usually files its new report on Mondays.SEC
Strategy faces a busy week: the STRC shareholder vote on Wednesday, Oct 28 at 10:00 AM ET and quarterly earnings on Oct 29; the share buyback cap has been raised from $2 billion to $3 billion.Bitcoin News Digest
Strive bought 1,223 BTC for about $100 million (Oct 14⁠–⁠16) at an average of $81,734 and holds 36,818 BTC; in all, 181 public companies own 1.30 million BTC, or 6.2% of supply.CoinGecko
Ether ETFs took in $4.35 million on Oct 23, only their third inflow of October; month to date the Ether funds have lost about $1 billion.Benzinga
BlackRock filed for a "buffer" Bitcoin ETF that caps the first 10% of losses in each tranche; Franklin Templeton's Bitcoin ETFs with reinvested distributions launch on Oct 27.Bitcoin News Digest

6Sentiment and on-chain

The Fear & Greed Index read 50, "neutral": 54 the day before, 59 a week ago and 74 a month ago, so October's greed has faded in four weeks.alternative.me
MVRV as of Oct 25 was 1.48 (38th percentile historically): the average holder is 48% in profit, well short of overheated zones.Coinmetrics
The short-term holder cost basis was $74,682 as of Oct 19: the market is 7% above it, so recent buyers are on average not yet underwater.Bgeometrics

5 more facts

Stablecoin supply stood at $304.1 billion, down 0.7% on the week and $2.6 billion on the month: no fresh money is coming into the market.Defillama
Per CryptoQuant, retail deposits to exchanges over 30 days grew from $5.5 billion to $10.75 billion (a six-month high on Binance), while whale deposits fell from $5.9 billion in late August to $3.8 billion: small holders are selling, large ones are waiting.Crypto
Lookonchain: since Oct 1, 40 new wallets have withdrawn 9,458 BTC (about $771 million) from Wintermute, which looks like accumulation, although a purchase is unconfirmed (Oct 22).The Block
Polymarket on October targets: a 53.5% chance of reaching $82,500 and 18.5% of $85,000; 44% of dropping to $77,500 and 17.5% to $75,000; the "up or down" market for Oct 27 was exactly 50/50.Polymarket
Xapo Bank CEO Seamus Rocca noted that wealthy clients are increasingly borrowing against Bitcoin rather than selling it, which keeps supply from large holders in check.Investing.com

7Mining

Hashrate was 1,086 EH/s and difficulty 140.58 T after a 5.9% increase on Oct 16; the seven-day average network power is back above 1 ZH/s.mempool.space
The next difficulty adjustment is due around Oct 29, with 535 blocks to go; the current pace points to +6.1%, with other estimates at +5.1%.mempool.space
Fees were 1⁠–⁠2 sat/vB and the mempool was empty: there was little demand for on-chain transfers even during the weekend sell-off.mempool.space

3 more facts

Block height was 973,193, leaving 76,807 blocks until the April 2028 halving.mempool.space
Wallets linked to MARA moved 1,000 BTC to exchanges over five days (per Lookonchain); a sale is unconfirmed, but miners are again testing the market at $80,000.Bitcoin News Digest
Some miners are shifting capacity and sites to AI workloads: with hashrate above 1 ZH/s and the price below $81,000, revenue per unit of hashpower remains under pressure.Phemex

8Macro

US stocks closed lower on Friday, Oct 23: the S&P 500 fell 0.5% to 7,624 (a second straight losing week), the Dow 1.2% and the Nasdaq 0.2% to 25,955; the VIX was 19.45.Yahoo Finance
On Sunday evening, after Trump's remarks, S&P 500 futures added 0.5%, Nasdaq 100 futures 0.7% and Dow futures 0.4%; Bitcoin did not follow the move and stayed near $80,000.Crypto
Asia on Monday morning: the Nikkei slipped 0.1% to 62,603, the Kospi 1.1% to 5,494, the Hang Seng rose 0.2% to 23,138 and Shanghai fell 0.4% to 3,674; chipmakers Tokyo Electron and Renesas lost more than 3% on doubts about AI returns.Aol

9 more facts

On Sunday, Oct 25, Trump said there would be no strike on Iran "today" but that he was choosing between a deal and "finishing them off"; a Qatari delegation arrived in Tehran the same day, and the State Department pulled some embassy staff out of Saudi Arabia.Timesofisrael
Oil retreated from six-month highs: Brent closed Friday at $116.72 (+3.1%) and traded at $110⁠–⁠114.5 on Monday morning (down 1.3⁠–⁠1.9% depending on the quote), with WTI near $101 (-2%).Brecorder
The Fed meets Oct 27⁠–⁠28, with the decision Wednesday at 2:00 PM ET and Chair Kevin Warsh's press conference at 2:30 PM ET; the rate is 3.75⁠–⁠4.00%, and 94 of 100 economists in a Reuters poll expect a hold.Federal Reserve
Polymarket for October: no change 94.5%, a 25 bp hike 5.5%; CME FedWatch puts a hike at about 9⁠–⁠10%; for December Polymarket prices a 25 bp hike at 76.5%.Polymarket
The 10-year Treasury yield was 5.00% on Oct 23 (+4 bp on the day) and the 2-year 4.69%; the DXY dollar index was 101.66 (-0.15%) and gold $4,026 (+0.5% on the day, -3.2% over five days).Treasury
Friday's data: Michigan consumer sentiment for October 48.0 with one-year inflation expectations at 4.7%; jobless claims 194,000; the S&P Global composite PMI 57.6.Bitcoin News Digest
The week's calendar in ET: Tuesday, Oct 27 at 8:30 AM, durable goods orders (forecast +1.2%); Wednesday, Oct 28, the Fed, Bank of Canada, RBNZ and the UK budget; Thursday, Oct 29 at 8:30 AM, Q3 GDP (consensus 3.0%, GDPNow 3.5%) and September PCE (3.6% YoY, core 3.1%), plus the ECB; Friday, Oct 30, the Bank of Japan.Newsquawk
Monday brings only second-tier US data, the Dallas Fed manufacturing index at 10:30 AM ET; the week's key earnings are Microsoft and Alphabet after the close on Oct 28, and Amazon, Apple and Coinbase on Oct 29.Substack
The Fed's main inflation risk is energy: the war with Iran has cut global oil supply, US inflation remains above 3%, and September PCE is expected to show about 3.6⁠–⁠3.7% YoY.Aol

9Regulation and events

A Tianjin court accepted a petition to confiscate 61,896 BTC tied to a $5.7 billion fraud and opened a six-month window for objections; the coins are under the control of UK authorities.CoinDesk
Swiss regulator FINMA approved a Bitcoin fund from BIT Asset Management, the country's first retail spot Bitcoin ETF, with a SIX listing planned for November.Bitcoin News Digest
Standard Chartered agreed to acquire custodian Zodia Custody for an undisclosed sum, pending regulatory approval.Bitcoin News Digest

5 more facts

The CFTC has been collecting comments since Oct 5 on rules for retail leveraged crypto trading (Regulation CTX and a new CAM venue category): after the Clarity Act failed in the Senate on Sep 15, regulators are acting under their own authority.CFTC
Electrum released version 4.8.3 after malicious servers exploited a flaw to redirect Bitcoin payments during fee bumps; Keystone warned customers of phishing after contact data leaked from its web store.Cryptoadventure
Indian exchange CoinDCX admitted about $16 million in "operational losses" after on-chain investigators reported suspicious withdrawals it had first dismissed as rumors; most of the funds were in USDT.Protos
Bitget plans to close its acquisition of a Thai exchange on Oct 31, five weeks after a $387.5 million hack that did not touch customer balances.Crypto
Political calendar: the Chinese Communist Party plenum on Oct 26⁠–⁠29, Israel's Knesset election on Oct 27, US congressional elections on Nov 3, and the MSCI index decision on Nov 11, which matters for Strategy.Newsquawk

Forecast accuracy

Every day the scenarios are recorded at release; 24 hours later we check which range the price landed in. Misses are not hidden.

Days with a forecast

Base case came true

86%

the daily close landed inside the most likely scenario’s range

At least one scenario right

100%

the close landed inside one of the three ranges

Day	Morning price	Close	Base case	Came true	Hit
October 25, 2026 · overnight	$80,824	$80,134 (-1.0%)	Sideways, 55%	Sideways	yes
October 25, 2026 · morning, pre-market	$80,350	$80,416 (-0.2%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 24, 2026 · morning, pre-market	$80,776	$80,581 (+0.0%)	Sideways, 55%	Sideways	yes
October 23, 2026	$81,637	$81,189 (-0.3%)	Sideways, 45%	Sideways	yes
October 22, 2026	$82,932	$81,416 (-3.2%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 21, 2026	$82,892	$84,093 (+1.3%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 20, 2026	$81,990	$83,028 (+1.3%)	Sideways, 45%	Sideways	yes
October 19, 2026	$82,886	$81,938 (-0.2%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 18, 2026	$81,746	$82,116 (+0.8%)	Sideways, 55%	Sideways	yes
October 17, 2026	$81,615	$81,491 (-0.1%)	Sideways, 55%	Sideways	yes
October 16, 2026	$82,202	$81,616 (-0.8%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 15, 2026	$81,108	$82,246 (+0.7%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 14, 2026	$83,610	$81,682 (-1.8%)	Sideways, 45%	Pullback	no
October 13, 2026	$83,728	$83,169 (+1.6%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 12, 2026	$84,017	$81,850 (-2.3%)	Sideways, 50%	Pullback	no
October 11, 2026	$83,078	$83,773 (+0.9%)	Sideways, 55%	Sideways	yes
October 10, 2026	$82,669	$82,988 (+0.4%)	Sideways, 55%	Sideways	yes
October 9, 2026	$82,374	$82,636 (+1.1%)	Sideways, 48%	Sideways	yes
October 8, 2026	$82,927	$81,754 (-1.9%)	Sideways, 47%	Pullback	no
October 7, 2026	$84,194	$83,322 (-2.6%)	Sideways, 50%	Sideways	yes
October 6, 2026	$85,674	$85,550 (-0.2%)	Sideways, 60%	Sideways	yes

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