Bitcoin Slides to $81,400 as Market Anxiety Drives Demand for Downside Hedges

Bitcoin slipped 0.5% to around $81,400 on Tuesday, even as U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $526.6 million in inflows on Monday, their biggest daily haul in nearly a month. Meanwhile, renewed fears over AI spending sent South Korean stocks sharply lower, putting pressure on cryptocurrency and other risk assets.

Bitcoin (BTC) was trading near $81,400, down 0.5% since midnight UTC. The decline followed Monday’s $526.6 million inflow into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, the strongest single-day total in almost four weeks.

Asian markets led the downturn. South Korea’s Kospi fell 3.73%, ending at its lowest level since April 7, as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics shares weakened amid concerns about the sustainability of AI investment. Nasdaq 100 futures also dropped 0.31%.

The broader crypto market followed Bitcoin lower. Ether (ETH) declined 0.9% to approximately $2,385, while the CoinDesk 80 index (CD80) shed 0.34%. The Bitcoin-weighted CoinDesk 5 index (CD5) slipped 0.33%. DeFi assets performed worse than the wider market, with the DFX index falling 1.2%, the steepest decline among CoinDesk’s benchmarks.

Brent crude traded near $110 a barrel as Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia kept concerns about oil supply disruptions elevated. Around 70 S&P 500 companies are due to release quarterly earnings this week, including General Motors before Tuesday’s opening bell and United Airlines after the close.

Derivatives positioning

Bitcoin open interest on Coinalyze fell 0.6% over 24 hours to $27.4 billion. The aggregated funding rate was approximately 8.8% annualized, while Ether’s funding rate stood near 3.9%, suggesting a bullish bias among ETH derivatives traders.

Long positions represented about 55% of Bitcoin positions, with Coinalyze reporting a long-to-short ratio of 1.24. Binance’s top traders also showed a preference for long exposure, with the BTC-USDT position ratio reaching 1.78, according to CoinGlass.

Options activity pointed to increasing demand for downside protection. On Deribit, put options traded at more than twice the volume of calls over the previous 24 hours. The October 30 $80,000 put was the most actively traded contract.

Out-of-the-money puts carried premiums of 2.5 to 4 volatility points over comparable calls across multiple expiries. This bearish skew indicates that traders are paying more to guard against further losses, despite open interest remaining concentrated in October 30 calls with strike prices between $90,000 and $100,000.

CoinGlass reported $155.1 million in liquidations across crypto markets over 24 hours, down 54.7% from the previous day. Long positions accounted for roughly 69% of liquidations in CoinMarketCap’s figures. Coinalyze recorded about $30 million in liquidations for both Bitcoin and Ether, together representing around half of its $120.6 million total.

Token market movements

Celestia (TIA) rose 2.2% to roughly $0.63, making it the top performer on the CoinDesk 100 index (CD100). The token has gained around 42% over the past month.

The advance coincided with Celestia’s October 1 benchmark, which showed its Fibre scaling system averaging 3.07 terabits per second. Derivatives exchange Derive also selected Celestia for data availability in its V3 release. Traders are now monitoring an October 31 unlock of 5.58 million TIA tokens, according to Tokenomist.

The Sandbox (SAND) was the biggest loser on the CD100, declining 4.5% to approximately $0.06. The pullback gave back part of its roughly 30% monthly gain. The earlier rally began after South Korean crypto exchanges Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone lifted trading cautions imposed in August following a bridge exploit.

Layer-2 cryptocurrencies also weakened, with Arbitrum (ARB) down 3.6% and Starknet (STRK) losing 3.2%. Starknet remains up approximately 29% over the past month following a sharp rally on October 9 and 10. The move came after the network said it was considering becoming a standalone, quantum-resistant layer-1 blockchain by 2027.

DeFi tokens retreated after leading gains on Monday. Uniswap (UNI) fell 2.3% to around $7.14, while Morpho (MORPHO) declined 2.5%. UNI has lost roughly 20% over the past month, despite protocol revenue reaching $14.81 million in September following the introduction of its fee switch. Token Terminal identified this as the strongest monthly revenue result since Uniswap began retaining fees.

Ethena (ENA) dropped another 1.9%, extending its decline to approximately 30% from a late-September peak near $0.29. USDe supply stood at around $4.7 billion, down from a high of nearly $15 billion. The current figure remains below the $7.5 billion threshold needed to activate ENA buybacks.