Crypto market weekly review: Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2026

Bitcoin closed the week of September 28 – October 4 up 2.4%, with its highest weekly close since late January. It was not a quiet week, though: on Friday a weak US jobs report sent the price to $87,220, and within hours it fell back below $84,000 as leveraged longs were liquidated. For the latest picture of the day, see the daily brief.

The week in 5 points

• BTC +2.4% on the week: open $84,472, close $86,530, range $82,563⁠–⁠87,220 (Binance, 4h candles). The highest weekly close since the week of January 19⁠–⁠25, 2026 ($86,670), yet still below the yearly open of $87,648.
• Friday, October 2 produced the candle of the week. Payrolls rose by only 29,000 against roughly 90,000 expected (First Trust). BTC spiked to $87,220, then dropped to $83,888, and 24-hour liquidations topped $570 million (PrimeXBT citing CoinGlass).
• ETF demand cooled: US spot BTC ETFs took in +$241 million over five sessions versus +$2.39 billion the week before. IBIT added +$450 million while FBTC lost $168 million (TFTC/Farside). Spot ETH ETFs saw $118 million of net outflows.
• Macro weighed on risk: the 10-year Treasury yield rose 11 bp on the week to 5.28%, the DXY dollar index gained 0.95% to 101.93, and the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%. Meanwhile, the odds of an October Fed hike on CME FedWatch fell to 17% from 36% a week earlier.
• Altcoins lagged Bitcoin: ETH +1.4%, SOL −0.3%, ETH/BTC −1.0%. The best large cap was AAVE (+15.9%); the worst were ONDO (−15.2%) and ZEC (−14.8%).

Price and technical picture

Based on Binance 4-hour candles (BTCUSDT, Sep 28 00:00 – Oct 4 24:00 UTC):

• open $84,472, close $86,530, +2.44%;
• high $87,220 (October 2, 12:00⁠–⁠16:00 UTC candle, right after the jobs data);
• low $82,563 (September 28, 12:00⁠–⁠16:00 UTC candle);
• range $4,657, or 5.5% of the open;
• Binance spot volume 111,092 BTC, 14.5% lower than the previous week (129,876 BTC).

Monday opened with a test of $82,500⁠–⁠83,000, and from Tuesday to Thursday the price held a corridor of roughly $82,800⁠–⁠85,650. On Friday it broke out of that range but failed to hold, closing the day at $84,518. The weekend was quiet (Saturday +0.3%), and Sunday added 2.1% to close at $86,530, close to the weekly high.

Our calculations at the October 4 daily close:

• EMA20 $83,057, EMA50 $78,900, EMA200 $74,871: price is above all three, and the averages are stacked in bullish order.
• RSI(14) (Wilder) 68.7 versus 65.1 a week earlier: close to overbought (70), but not there yet.
• MACD 2,016 vs. signal 2,080: the line is below its signal, so momentum is weaker than in mid-September even though price is higher.
• The 200-day SMA is around $71,500; by our data the 50/200 golden cross happened on September 13.

Key levels the market worked this week:

• Resistance: $87,220⁠–⁠87,400 (the October 2 high and the September 21 high of $87,396, a 90-day high), then the yearly open at $87,648 and the round $90,000.
• Support: $85,000⁠–⁠85,500. According to Glassnode, as of September 30 this zone held a sell wall that capped the rally; on Friday price pushed through it, slipped back below, and by Sunday was holding above it again. Below that: $84,000, the weekly low of $82,563 and the EMA50 near $78,900.

Live indicators and levels are updated on the Bitcoin page and in the Market pulse block.

Derivatives and options

Funding stayed moderately positive all week, with no sign of overheating. Average BTCUSDT perpetual funding for Sep 28 – Oct 4 (our calculation from exchange APIs):

• Binance: +0.0038% per 8 hours (about 4.2% annualized), low −0.0026%;
• Bybit: +0.0031% (about 3.4% annualized);
• OKX: +0.0038% (about 4.2% annualized);
• Hyperliquid: +0.0009% per hour, or about +0.0073% per 8 hours (about 8% annualized).

Traders added long leverage, but not aggressively, so Friday's flush did not turn into a crash.

Open interest in Binance BTCUSDT rose from 94,143 BTC ($7.95 billion) at the start of the week to 97,452 BTC ($8.43 billion) by the morning of October 5, up 3.5% in coin terms. It peaked on October 2 at 08:00 UTC at 99,669 BTC ($8.58 billion), a few hours before the reversal. The weekly low of 92,474 BTC came on September 30.

Liquidations. Almost all of the week's activity came on Friday. After the failed break above $87,000, market-wide liquidations over 24 hours topped $570 million, including $186 million in the final hour, almost all of them longs (PrimeXBT, CoinGlass data). By Saturday morning the rolling 24-hour window showed $433.6 million, 74.2% of it longs (Bitcoin News Digest, CoinGlass data).

Options. Implied volatility barely moved: Deribit's DVOL index closed September 28 at 35.9 and October 4 at 36.5, with an intraweek range of 34.5⁠–⁠36.7. The market is not paying up for big moves even after Friday's candle. The weekly expiry on October 2 settled at $85,875 (Deribit).

Deribit open interest structure from the latest snapshot in our feed:

• total 358,673 BTC (about $30.7 billion), put/call by OI 0.56, calls dominate the book;
• the next large expiry is Friday, October 9: 21,610 BTC, max pain $84,000, put/call 1.12;
• the monthly expiry on October 30: 125,312 BTC, max pain $78,000, put/call 0.40;
• the quarterly on December 25: 121,609 BTC, max pain $75,000.

October 9 max pain sits $2,500 below Sunday's close. Max pain is not a forecast, and price often ignores it.

ETFs and institutions

US spot BTC ETFs took in +$241.1 million on the week. The week before brought +$2.39 billion, the largest weekly inflow since October 2025 (The Block). By day (Farside data as compiled by TFTC for September and for October):

• Sep 28: +$31.1 million;
• Sep 29: +$66.2 million;
• Sep 30: −$148.7 million, ending a nine-day inflow streak worth about $3.1 billion; FBTC −$125.6 million;
• Oct 1: +$102.7 million, IBIT +$195.6 million while every other major fund except BTC and MSBT saw outflows;
• Oct 2: +$189.8 million, IBIT +$158.2 million, FBTC +$29.3 million.

Weekly totals by fund (our sum of daily data): IBIT +$450.2 million, ARKB +$25.5 million, BTC (Grayscale mini trust) +$24.9 million, MSBT +$9.4 million; FBTC −$167.9 million, GBTC −$54.6 million, BITB −$38.6 million, BTCO −$4.2 million, HODL −$3.6 million. Without BlackRock, the week would have shown $209 million of outflows. Cumulative net inflows into all US spot BTC ETFs stood at $57.6 billion as of October 1, with $109.3 billion in assets, or 6.43% of Bitcoin's market cap (Bitcoin News Digest, SoSoValue data).

Spot ETH ETFs lost $118.0 million over five sessions (Bitcoin News Digest, Farside data). The biggest days were September 30 at −$59.6 million (SoSoValue via KuCoin) and October 1 at −$55.4 million (CoinOtag).

Companies:

• Strategy bought 334 BTC for $28.7 million at an average of $85,839 on October 1⁠–⁠4. It now holds 848,000 BTC at an average cost of $75,441. Its USD reserve is $4.88 billion, and its Q3 gain on digital assets was $20.91 billion. Over the same days it repurchased 740,634 STRC preferred shares for $73.7 million (8-K, SEC). The buying pace slowed sharply: a week earlier Strategy bought 1,665 BTC for $142.7 million.
• Strive bought 2,000 BTC on Sep 28 – Oct 2 at an average of about $84,422, taking its holdings to 29,462 BTC. In Q3 the company bought 8,137 BTC at an average of $78,885 (8-K, SEC).
• Citi, in a note dated September 30, raised its 12-month BTC target to $113,000 from $82,000 and its ETH target to $3,028 from $2,240. The bank expects about $5 billion of inflows over the next year (Decrypt).

On-chain and mining

In its September 30 report, Glassnode described the market as an early uptrend that has not yet drawn broad participation. The key numbers:

• the True Market Mean at $77,200 remains the main support, and the short-term holder (STH) cost basis is $73,300;
• long-term holders nearly doubled their realized profits, lifting their share of total realized profit from 34% to 55%, though profit-taking is still light compared with past tops;
• average trading volume is $6.4 billion a day, near the bottom of its range since the ETFs launched.

Our data fits that picture. The STH price from BGeometrics was $73,383 as of September 29, so the average short-term holder is about 18% in profit. Stablecoin supply per DefiLlama rose from $311.7 billion to $313.7 billion on the week (+$2.0 billion, +0.6%): new liquidity is arriving, if without haste. The Fear & Greed Index stayed in "greed": 74 on Monday and 65 on Sunday, the weekly low after Friday's flush.

Mining. On October 3 at 07:16 UTC, at block 969,696, difficulty adjusted by −0.03% to 132.72 T (mempool.space). The previous adjustment, on September 19, was +4.2%. Daily hashrate estimates from mempool.space ranged from 869 to 1,088 EH/s during the week, averaging about 962 EH/s. Fees remain at the floor, around 1 sat/vB for next-block inclusion, so miner revenue depends almost entirely on the subsidy and the price. Hashprice is holding near $40 per PH/s per day, at or below breakeven for many operators (Hashrate Index).

Macro

The week brought three important releases, and all of them pushed rate expectations toward a pause:

• September 30, August PCE: headline +0.3% m/m and +3.4% y/y, core +0.2% m/m and +3.0% y/y (BabyPips).
• October 1, ISM Manufacturing: 54.5 versus 55.0 expected, but the prices index jumped to 77.9 from 71.1 (First Trust), a reminder that inflation pressure has not gone away.
• October 2, September jobs: +29,000 payrolls, July–August revised down by 60,000, unemployment 4.2% from 4.1%, average hourly earnings +0.1% m/m and +3.0% y/y (First Trust).

The Fed. The policy rate is 3.75⁠–⁠4.00% after the September 16 hike. Following the soft data, CME FedWatch odds of another hike at the October 27⁠–⁠28 meeting fell to 17% from 36% a week earlier (Bitcoin News Digest, CME FedWatch).

Bonds and the dollar kept climbing, and that was the main headwind for crypto. Per the US Treasury, from September 25 to October 2:

• 10Y: 5.17% → 5.28% (+11 bp), with a weekly peak of 5.29% on September 30;
• 30Y: 5.49% → 5.63% (+14 bp);
• 2Y: 4.81% → 4.83% (+2 bp).

The curve steepened. The DXY rose from 100.97 to 101.93 (+0.95%) and closed at 102.10 on October 1. According to FXStreet, that was the dollar's third straight weekly gain, taking it to levels last seen in April 2025.

Equities and commodities (Yahoo Finance, closes Sep 25 → Oct 2): S&P 500 7,743 → 7,723 (−0.3%), Nasdaq 27,069 → 27,191 (+0.5%), VIX 14.9 → 15.3, gold $4,321 → $4,162 (−3.7%), WTI crude $92.4 → $91.1.

How it hit crypto. The weak jobs report was first read as an argument against a hike, and Bitcoin jumped from $86,000 to $87,200 within minutes (PrimeXBT). But the 10-year yield closed Friday at 5.28%, 4 bp above Thursday, and the dollar held near 102. Against that backdrop, sellers stepped in at the $87,200⁠–⁠87,400 resistance and crowded longs were liquidated. Even so, Bitcoin ended the week ahead of both stocks and gold: S&P 500 −0.3%, gold −3.7%, BTC +2.4%.

Altcoins of the week

The rally was narrow and Bitcoin-led. Weekly performance of large caps and the most notable movers on Binance (USDT pairs, Sep 28 00:00 – Oct 4 24:00 UTC):

Ethereum gained 1.4% but lagged Bitcoin: ETH/BTC fell about 1.0%, from 0.03183 to 0.03151. ETH tested $2,777 during the week and, according to PrimeXBT, fell with the market on Friday from $2,750 to about $2,650. Fund demand is weak, with ETH ETFs $118 million in the red for the week. More on the Ethereum page.

Solana finished the week almost flat (−0.3%) in a tight $116⁠–⁠124 range. Treasury company DeFi Development Corp reported its holdings rose to 2,538,010 SOL and equivalents as of September 25, up from 2,490,304 SOL on September 18 (8-K, SEC).

Notable movers:

• AAVE +15.9%, the best result among large altcoins. Intraweek the token reached $187.50, 21% above the open. We found no catalyst confirmed by a primary source.
• HBAR +8.5%, with a sharp intraweek spike to $0.13096 (+36.6% from the open), most of which it then gave back.
• ZEC −14.8%. A correction after a strong September: on September 29 the token lost 12% in a day, with $10.08 million of longs liquidated in a single hour (CoinGabbar).
• ONDO −15.2% and ENA −11.4% were the weakest notable coins of the week. NEAR (−8.7%) and APT (−7.3%) were also soft.

Regulation and events

• The SEC proposed crypto custody rules (October 1). Under certain conditions, registered investment advisers and funds could self-custody crypto assets when no qualified custodian is available, and state trust companies would be eligible as custodians. Comments are open for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register (SEC press release).
• Hester Peirce left the SEC on October 2. The commission is down to two members, Chairman Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda, with no successor named (PlanSponsor). With two members, a single recusal or absence can stall rulemaking votes.

Calendar for the week ahead (October 5⁠–⁠11)

Times in UTC.

• Mon, Oct 5: ISM Services for September, 14:00.
• Tue, Oct 6: US trade balance, 12:30; $58 billion 3-year Treasury auction; Fed's Williams and Bowman speak.
• Wed, Oct 7: $39 billion 10-year auction, 17:00; FOMC minutes from the September 15⁠–⁠16 meeting, 18:00; New York Fed consumer inflation expectations; Logan and Williams speak.
• Thu, Oct 8: initial jobless claims, 12:30; $22 billion 30-year auction; ECB accounts; Fed's Musalem and Bank of England Governor Bailey speak.
• Fri, Oct 9: Deribit options expiry at 08:00 (21,610 BTC, max pain $84,000); University of Michigan preliminary consumer sentiment, 14:00; Fed's Collins speaks.
• Sat–Sun, Oct 10⁠–⁠11: no major releases. Further out: September CPI on October 14 and the Fed decision on October 28.

Sources: FXStreet, Trading Economics, Deribit data from our feed.

Bottom line: the base case for the week

Bitcoin enters the week at the top of the $82,500⁠–⁠87,400 corridor it has traded in for almost two weeks. On the positive side: price is above the EMA20/50/200, funding is moderate, stablecoins are flowing in, companies keep buying, and the odds of an October hike have dropped. On the negative side: Treasury yields are near multi-decade highs, the dollar is strengthening, ETF demand has cooled, and the $87,200⁠–⁠87,400 resistance has already stopped two rallies.

Base case (our assessment): sideways in $84,000⁠–⁠88,000 until Wednesday's FOMC minutes. The minutes and the 10- and 30-year auctions will likely set the direction for yields, and crypto will follow.

• Breakout: holding above $87,400 and the yearly open at $87,648 would open the way to $90,000. That probably needs calm minutes and the 10-year falling back below 5.2%.
• Pullback: losing $84,000 would bring the weekly low of $82,563 and Friday's $84,000 max pain into play. Below that, the next reference is the EMA50 near $78,900.

Historical analogues are in the fractals section; today's numbers are in the daily brief.

This is not investment advice.