Bitcoin Steadies After Trump Says U.S. Won’t Strike Iran Before Midterm Elections

Bitcoin rose back toward $82,500 after President Donald Trump said the United States would not attack Iran before the November 3 midterm elections. However, the rebound has done little to reverse the weekly decline, with BTC still down about 4% and Ether losing 9%.

Bitcoin recovered from a Thursday low near $80,300 to approximately $82,500, but remains around 4% below its level from the previous Friday. Ether (ETH) has recorded a steeper weekly loss, falling 9% to roughly $2,500.

The market turnaround followed Trump’s Thursday announcement on Truth Social that the U.S. would refrain from striking Iran before the midterm elections. Brent crude prices also weakened, slipping approximately 1% to around $103 per barrel.

Smaller cryptocurrencies led the recovery, with the CoinDesk 80 index gaining 2.2% since midnight UTC. That performance was more than double the increase recorded by the CoinDesk 5 index.

Despite the rebound, overall market performance remained weak. The CoinDesk 100 was down 2.2% over 24 hours, while DeFi tokens declined nearly 4%. U.S.-listed Bitcoin, Ether and Zcash ETFs recorded outflows on Thursday, while XRP funds were the only crypto investment products to attract new money.

Security concerns also contributed to market uncertainty following Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake’s call for crypto holders to adopt “bunker mode” in preparation for possible AI-related threats. Coinbase cryptographer Yehuda Lindell dismissed the warning as “FUD,” meaning fear, uncertainty and doubt, and said there was no evidence that the elliptic-curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin and Ether had been compromised.

U.S. stock futures also advanced after Trump’s comments. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.83% since midnight, while S&P 500 futures increased 0.44%.

Derivatives data points to cautious positioning

Bitcoin futures open interest declined 1.9% over 24 hours to $27.1 billion, according to Coinalyze. The figure has changed little since Thursday afternoon’s liquidation wave, even as BTC returned to around $82,500. This suggests that the recovery has not attracted a substantial increase in leveraged trading.

Funding rates remain positive at approximately 5% annualized, with the predicted rate slightly higher. This indicates that long traders are still paying to maintain positions based on expectations of further price gains. Deribit’s October 30 Bitcoin futures are trading at an annualized basis of around 7%.

Bullish positions continue to outweigh bearish bets. Coinalyze’s aggregate long-to-short ratio stands at 1.85, suggesting that about 65% of tracked positions are long. The ratio was close to an even split at the beginning of the month.

CoinGlass data shows that crypto liquidations totaled $1.09 billion over 24 hours. Long positions accounted for $931 million, approximately 85% of the total. Ether led with $345 million in liquidations, followed by Bitcoin at $266 million and Solana at $65 million. The largest individual liquidation was a $20 million ETH-USD position on Hyperliquid.

Altcoins see sharp gains and reversals

Starknet (STRK) surged 33% over 24 hours after announcing that it was considering leaving Ethereum to operate as a standalone layer-1 blockchain. The network is also targeting full quantum resistance by 2027, although the proposal remains unapproved. The news followed the closure of Pudgy Penguins’ Abstract, which became the second Ethereum layer-2 network to shut down within a week.

Kaia (KAIA), a layer-1 network formed by merging Kakao’s Klaytn with LINE’s Finschia, gained 40% since midnight after being listed on Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange. Other layer-1 tokens joined the rally, with Aptos (APT) climbing 12% and Cosmos (ATOM) and Polkadot (DOT) gaining nearly 10% each.

Some of Thursday’s biggest gainers subsequently reversed course. Algorand (ALGO), which led the CoinDesk 100 with a 9% advance on Thursday morning, fell 14% over 24 hours. Curve (CRV) dropped 13% after previously rising 11%.

AI-related tokens remained under pressure after fresh information about OpenAI’s revenue weighed on technology stocks. CNBC reported on Thursday that OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate stood at $50 billion at the end of September, below the $68 billion figure widely reported the previous month. The disclosure coincided with the Nasdaq Composite posting its largest one-day decline since mid-August.

The AI agent payments token Kite (KITE) and Venice (VVV) each fell approximately 9% over 24 hours and remained slightly lower since midnight UTC.

Pyth Network (PYTH), an oracle token, gained 13% over 24 hours, making it one of the few cryptocurrencies to record positive performance across both timeframes.