Eyes on the Market: At Cost Basis BTC dropped below $80K on Saturday. BTC fell 1.98% to $80,386 after a low of $79,107, and ETH fell 2.64% to $2,344. Thursday’s selloff erased Wednesday’s run to $84,856. Oil hit a six-month high. Brent closed Friday at $116.72, its highest close since April 29, as Gulf attacks reached Saudi energy infrastructure. Gold fell 4.31% to $4,004. The Fed is priced to hold on Wednesday. Polymarket puts a hold on October 28 at 95%. October hike odds peaked at 48% after CPI on October 14 and now sit at 6%. Treasury companies slowed down. Strategy bought 267 BTC and spent $193.1M buying back STRC ahead of its October 28 shareholder vote and MSCI’s November 11 list. Liquidations hit both sides. Shorts lost $498.1M as BTC rallied into Wednesday, then longs lost $1.23B from Thursday to Saturday. IBIT carried BTC ETF flows. BTC ETFs took in $301.2M. IBIT drew $565.7M while every other fund combined lost $264.5M. In October so far, IBIT sits at +$755.2M and the rest at -$1,068.7M. ETH ETFs posted a fourth straight outflow week. They lost $220.7M this week and $1.22B since September 28, erasing 75% of the year’s inflows. Oil Up, Everything Else Down BTC opened Monday at $82,007 and closed Sunday at $80,386, down 1.98%. ETH fell 2.64% to $2,344. Total crypto market cap fell 2.73% to $2.77T. BTC peaked at $84,856 on Wednesday and closed the day at $84,613, up 3.18% on the week, with ETH up 3.45% to $2,491. Thursday erased both gains as tanker attacks near Hormuz sent Brent higher and Big Tech sold off. From Wednesday’s close, BTC fell 4.08% and ETH 4.45%, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.60%, its worst session since June. BTC fell 1.6 times as far as the Nasdaq that day. BTC broke below $80K on Saturday to a low of $79,107, under Glassnode’s estimated $80.2K average cost basis for ETF and treasury-company holders. It lost 1.14% from Friday to Sunday, and ETH lost 2.28% over the same stretch. Equities fell with crypto, but by less. The S&P 500 was down 0.71% and the Nasdaq Composite 1.34% by Sunday on weekend futures, after closing Friday’s cash session down 0.97% and 1.67%. Brent peaked at $116.72 on Friday and finished the week up 4.93%. Gold fell 4.31% to $4,004. Events of the Week Oil hits a six-month high Houthi attacks hit Saudi targets, including energy infrastructure, and about seven tankers were reported damaged near Hormuz by Thursday. On Wednesday the State Department ordered staff out of Saudi Arabia and cut staffing in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the UAE. Brent closed Friday at $116.72, its highest close since April 29. The 10-year fell from 5.13% to 4.96% on Thursday, its largest one-day drop since March 2023, then closed Friday back at 5.00%. The 20-year auction cleared at 5.469%, up from 5.420% at the prior auction. A hold is expected Polymarket puts a hold at the October 28 FOMC at 95%, with hike odds at 6%. They spent most of the month higher. September payrolls set a low starting point, at 29,000 against 90,000 expected, with unemployment up to 4.2%. The October 14 CPI print then took hike odds from 22% to 48%, and they settled near 30% within a day. On October 15, PPI beat forecasts and odds still slipped, as New York Fed President John Williams said he had no reason yet to believe the Fed would need to do more. They fell to 13% after Warsh spoke at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, where he declined to comment on the October 27–28 meeting and said only that the Fed will deliver price stability. December remains the most likely meeting for a hike, with odds sitting at 77%. Treasury companies slow down Strategy bought 267 BTC for $22.1M, spent $193.1M buying back STRC preferred shares, and raised its buyback authorization from $2B to $3B. The STRC shareholder vote is on October 28, and MSCI publishes its index decision on November 11. Strive bought 1,223 BTC for about $100M. Elsewhere: BlackRock filed for a buffered BTC ETF. Franklin Templeton’s BTC dividend-reinvestment ETFs take effect October 27. Standard Chartered agreed to acquire Zodia Custody. Germany’s Sparkassen opened crypto trading. Comment periods closed for the Fed’s GENIUS Act rules on October 19 and the SEC’s Regulation Crypto proposal on October 20. Polymarket gives Democrats a 92% chance of winning the House and 66% for the Senate ahead of the November 3 midterms, which open the lame-duck window for any second attempt at CLARITY. Volatility, Positioning and Leverage BVIV fell 4.8% from 40.76 to 38.82 by Tuesday’s close as BTC rallied, the weekly low. It then rose with the selloff, and closed higher on every day - but Friday - adding about 2% on Thursday and finishing Sunday at 41.13, up 0.9% on the week and 6.0% off the low. That close is within a tenth of the October 14 high, the highest daily close of the past month. Over the month, BVIV is up 10.8% from about 36.9. Aggregate futures open interest is $138.3B, against $140B last issue, down 1.2%. Coin-denominated BTC open interest has climbed from a low of 619K BTC on October 12 to 671K, still below its average for the year. Liquidations hit both sides. As BTC rallied to Wednesday’s high, $498.1M of shorts were liquidated from Monday to Wednesday. The selloff then flushed longs. Daily liquidations doubled to an average of $504.2M from Thursday to Saturday, $1.51B in total, with longs taking $1.23B of it, 82%. Saturday’s break below $80K was the largest day at $547.2M. BTC ETF Inflows Return as ETH Outflows Persist BTC and ETH ETFs took in $80.5M combined. BTC carried the week, and ETH lost money for a fourth straight week. BTC: +$301.2M. This week broke the outflow streak of the prior two weeks, but the net figure hides how volatile flows were. Monday to Wednesday brought $1.07B of inflows, then Thursday and Friday lost $774M. Thursday’s -$635.6M was the largest single-day outflow since June 25 (-$691.7M). IBIT drove the inflow days. It took in $665.2M on Monday, its largest day of 2026 and its biggest since October 7, 2025, and finished the week at +$565.7M. Every other fund combined lost $264.5M. For October to date, IBIT has drawn +$755.2M while the rest of the complex has lost $1,068.7M. Year-to-date flows sit at +$656.3M, down from +$1,021M on September 25. Our research on ETF flows found that IBIT’s flows predict price no better than the rest of the complex. On the 15 days IBIT took in big money while other funds sold - as it did Monday - BTC fell 0.86% on average over the next five days. Wednesday’s inflow landed on the week’s high and Thursday’s outflow on the same session as the selloff, which fits the broader finding that flows follow price.  The level to watch is about $79.6K, 7% below October 6’s close of $85.5K, the highest close of the past 20 days. Once BTC closes 7% below its 20-day high, ETF flows have historically flipped from +$74M a day to -$72M within a week. Saturday’s $79,107 low broke through that line intraday, but BTC closed Sunday about 0.7% above it. From Monday’s close, the line drops to about $78.1K as early October’s highs leave the window. ETH: -$220.7M. This is the fourth consecutive outflow week. Since September 28, ETH ETFs have lost $1.22B, taking year-to-date flows from +$1,622M to +$400.5M. ETHA has not posted an inflow in 19 sessions: 15 outflow days, four flat, and -$1.04B in total. Across October, 14 of 17 sessions were outflows. Key Events for the Week Ahead Tuesday, October 27 US: FOMC convenes. Durable goods and Conference Board consumer confidence. Israel: Knesset election. Wednesday, October 28 US: FOMC decision, 2pm ET. A hold is priced at 95%, so the dissents matter more than the decision. Canada: BoC decision, 9:45am ET. About 80% priced for a hike. New Zealand: RBNZ decision. UK: Autumn Budget. Australia: Q3 CPI. Strategy: STRC shareholder vote, 10am ET. Thursday, October 29 US: Q3 GDP advance estimate and September PCE, 8:30am ET. Consensus is about 3.0% for GDP, 3.6% y/y for headline PCE and 3.1% y/y for core. Euro area: ECB decision. Coinbase and Strategy earnings, after the close. Friday, October 30 Japan: BoJ decision. Euro area: Q3 GDP, plus flash October CPI for Germany, France, Italy and Spain.(Historical earnings: For fiscal 2026Q2 (period ended 2026-06-30), Coinbase reported basic and diluted EPS of -2.85, net income of USD -0.754 billion, and revenue of USD 2.633 billion. Consensus expectations: For the upcoming 2026Q3 event on 2026-10-29, consensus EPS estimate is -0.2169 and revenue estimate is USD 1.203 billion.)