Trading Desk Insights
Crypto’s felt heavy all week, and Thursday didn’t help much. The market keeps flirting with new lows as equities finally give up some ground. BTC cracked below $100k and is still hunting for support, with most desks eyeing $98k and then $88k as the next meaningful levels. There’s not much structure in between, so traders are wary of thin liquidity if momentum turns. On the bright side, spot crypto ETFs finally printed their first green day in six sessions, pulling in $239.9 million for BTC and a modest $12.5 million for ETH, small wins, but a sign that dip buyers haven’t disappeared entirely.
Alt action was all over the place. The leaders of the last cycle mostly stayed red, while a handful of AI and privacy names broke loose. ZEC has been the standout, ripping more than 750% since October began and now above $600 for the first time in almost seven years, giving it a $10.3 billion cap. Meanwhile, ICP, FIL, and NEAR have caught a second wind from the broader AI narrative, each tacking on double digits this week as traders rotate back into anything with “compute” in the pitch.
Macro tone wasn’t helping risk. The big AI stocks that carried tech all year finally stalled, with Nvidia, AMD, Tesla, and Microsoft all down sharply on Thursday. That dragged the Nasdaq and the rest of crypto’s risk correlation with it. Job-cut data added fuel, showing October layoffs at the highest level for that month in more than 20 years. 2025 is shaping up as the worst year for job losses since 2009, and that’s got people rethinking the “soft landing” story.
Still, a few tailwinds are on the radar. Washington may finally be close to ending the drawn-out government shutdown, and futures traders are again pricing in a decent shot of a December Fed rate cut. The Supreme Court’s questioning of Trump-era tariffs also caught investors’ attention as a potential macro release valve. All of it sets up an interesting end to the week, with crypto hanging on near its lows but still very much alive if macro relief shows up.
Crypto Charts
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