Bitcoin Holds Above $81,000 as Altcoins Recover and PEPE Rallies

Bitcoin edged 0.5% higher to approximately $81,700 on Friday, while altcoins posted stronger gains across several market segments. The CoinDesk 80 index rose 1.4%, and memecoins advanced 2.9%, pointing to renewed buying interest beyond the largest cryptocurrency.

Ether (ETH) gained 0.9% to trade near $2,401, while the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) index increased 0.7%. The memecoin gauge also climbed 2.9%.

The recovery followed Thursday’s sharp decline in technology stocks. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6%, recording its biggest daily loss since June. Asian equities stabilized unevenly, with South Korea’s Kospi advancing 0.3% and China’s CSI 300 gaining 1.7%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.25%.

Markets are now focused on the Federal Reserve’s Oct. 27–28 policy meeting. Brent crude hovering near $113 has kept inflation concerns in focus, while cryptocurrency investors are monitoring fund flows. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $635 million in withdrawals on Thursday, according to SoSoValue, following more than $1 billion in inflows during the first three days of the week.

Futures Trading Cools as Open Interest Turns Higher

Crypto futures volume declined 19% over 24 hours, while liquidations dropped 23% after both indicators increased sharply the previous day. Open interest recovered by 1% after an earlier decline, suggesting traders are beginning to establish fresh positions despite limited movement in Bitcoin’s price.

The long-short taker volume ratio leaned slightly toward selling, with short-side activity accounting for 51.6% of the total compared with 48.4% for longs.

Open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD), which tracks the balance of aggressive buying and selling, also moved closer to neutral. Nearly all tokens posted readings within 0.05% of zero, compared with negative readings across most assets on Thursday. XAUT remained an exception, registering approximately -0.25%.

BTC and ETH See Gradual Position Rebuilding

Open interest in Bitcoin and Ether futures increased by around 1% for each asset, even as their prices remained relatively unchanged. This suggests some traders are rebuilding exposure rather than merely closing positions.

Liquidations eased considerably, falling by roughly two-thirds for Bitcoin and one-third for Ether. Bitcoin’s funding rate rose to 0.0067% from 0.0041%, indicating that long traders are paying more to maintain leveraged positions. Ether’s funding rate remained unchanged.

Funding conditions also shifted for BNB, SUI and DOGE. BNB and SUI had negative funding rates of -0.0048% and -0.0036%, respectively, on Thursday, meaning short traders were paying long traders. Their rates have since turned positive, as has DOGE’s, with rising prices leaving long traders responsible for funding payments.

Meanwhile, open interest continued to decline in mZEC, SOL, XRP and DOGE, suggesting traders are actively reducing exposure. ZEC experienced the sharpest drop, with open interest falling 8% while its price declined 1.5%. The move marked a second consecutive day of substantial position closures.

Commodity Derivatives Attract More Open Interest

Open interest in gold, silver and crude oil futures rose for a second consecutive day. Gold and silver prices fell while funding remained positive, indicating that long traders continued to pay to hold their positions.

Crude oil futures showed stronger price momentum, with open interest increasing alongside a 1.4% gain. Negative funding suggested that short traders were paying long traders. Gold-backed token XAUT showed the strongest selling imbalance among the tracked tokens, recording the most negative open-interest-adjusted CVD.

Monero’s funding rate also retreated after ranking among the highest readings on the 24-hour heatmap. The decline suggests the earlier buildup in leveraged XMR positions has eased.

Options Markets Show Different Outlooks for Bitcoin and Ether

Bitcoin options activity concentrated on upside calls, led by the Nov. 27 $98,000 call and the Dec. 25 $88,000 call. Five of the six most actively traded contracts were calls with strike prices above Bitcoin’s current price. The only put in the group was a $76,000 contract expiring Oct. 30.

Ether options activity leaned toward puts, with the two most-traded contracts both targeting downside protection. The Oct. 26 $2,200 put led activity at approximately 9,000 contracts. However, volume figures alone do not show whether the contracts were bought or sold.

Ether’s one-week 25-delta put-call skew climbed to around 13%, indicating that puts were considerably more expensive than calls. Bitcoin’s comparable measure declined to approximately 4%, down from a mid-month peak near 14%.

The contrasting readings suggest that demand for downside protection has eased in Bitcoin options but strengthened in Ether markets.

PEPE Outperforms as Memecoins Bounce

Pepe (PEPE) climbed 14%, recording the strongest gain in the CD100 and its largest daily advance in a month. The Ethereum-based memecoin extended its weekly increase to 23% and its monthly gain to 16%, although no clear catalyst was identified.

Other major memecoins also moved higher. Floki (FLOKI), Bonk (BONK) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) gained between 3.3% and 4.9% on the day, but remained down by as much as 16% over the past month.

PEPE generated approximately $353 million in 24-hour trading volume, around 10% more than the previous day’s level at the same time.

Layer-1 tokens Polkadot (DOT) and Cosmos (ATOM) each rose more than 5%, extending their weekly advances beyond 6%. Their monthly performance remained mixed, with DOT down 2.5% in October and ATOM up 3.6%.

Decentralized finance tokens also recovered after leading Thursday’s losses. Uniswap (UNI) gained 3.5% to approximately $7.25, while Ethena (ENA) advanced 2% to around $0.20.

DoubleZero (2Z) and Monad (MON), two of the CD100’s weakest performers over the month, rose 2.5% and 4.3%, respectively. Despite the daily gains, both remained substantially lower for the month, down 49% and 31%.

CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season indicator advanced to 58 out of 100, recovering from Monday’s low of 54. The increase suggests sentiment toward altcoins is improving as Bitcoin continues to trade within a relatively narrow range.