Bitcoin broke below $80,000 over the weekend after The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that the United States is rapidly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases across the Middle East. In a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton wrote that "Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel." The evacuations go well beyond earlier reports of diplomatic staff being pulled from Saudi Arabia.

Bitcoin currently sits at $80,160, down 2.4% on the week, per Decrypt's price tracker. Ethereum fell 3.8% to $2,322, Solana slipped 3.2% to $101, and the broader CMC20 index is off 2.3%. Crypto markets trade around the clock, so geopolitical headlines land in a live market even when stock exchanges are closed.

The weekend slide underscores a wider divergence over the past month. Over 30 days, Bitcoin is down 4.8%, while the major assets around it average a 16.5% decline — more than three times as steep. Over that period, Ethereum is off 13.6%, Solana 17.1%, XRP 17.4%, Hyperliquid 17.4% and Dogecoin 22.3%.

There were pockets of strength. Zcash gained 8% on the week while nearly everything else bled, and sits up 135% on the year. Monero is up 37%. Privacy assets — coins built to obscure transaction details — continued to catch a bid in a week when the lead story was governments evacuating people ahead of potential attacks.

A Heavy Macro Calendar Ahead

The coming week is one of the busiest of the quarter. The U.S. Federal Reserve issues its next interest rate decision at Wednesday's FOMC meeting, with Kevin Warsh's press conference to follow. The European Central Bank announces Thursday, and the Bank of Japan closes out the week on Friday. Third-quarter GDP and September PCE data, the latter the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, land on Thursday — the same day Coinbase and Strategy report earnings after the bell.

Arguably more important for on-chain markets is the Robinhood earnings call on Tuesday, October 27. Key questions include whether CEO Vlad Tenev and his team will address the tokenized stock pushback, mention Robinhood Chain and its memestock ecosystem, or launch a builders grant program. The answers will likely shape the near-term future of that ecosystem.

The U.S. midterm elections are also eight days away, setting the stage for another potentially volatile week.

Macro, Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors were slightly red overall: BTC +0.2% at $80,200; ETH +0.4% at $2,330; SOL +1% at $101.50; HYPE +2% at $77; ZEC +4% at $1,230.

Top alt movers included QNT (+17%), ENA (+5%) and PYTH (+6%).

In traditional markets, oil fell 2% to $101 and gold added 0.4% to $4,025. Stock futures were slightly green as oil declined: Dow +0.35%, Nasdaq flat.

Crypto faces its heaviest macro week of the quarter, with Fed, ECB and Bank of Japan decisions Wednesday through Friday alongside Q3 GDP and PCE data, plus earnings from Robinhood and SoFi on Tuesday and Coinbase and Strategy on Thursday.

Goldman Sachs expects global growth to hold broadly stable through 2027 but sees downside risks building from higher energy prices, rising bond yields and slowing AI investment. The bank also argues that cooling inflation and AI's growing visibility in employment data mean central banks will hike less than expected.

Wells Fargo, Cisco, Marvell, Arm, Moderna and Intuit joined the growing list of companies objecting to tokenized versions of their shares on the OKX-ICE venue, bringing the count to 22 in eight days.

Electrum patched a flaw that let malicious servers steal funds from users who bumped a transaction fee. The wallet had trusted servers to report pending transactions without verifying signatures.

ETF Flows and Corporate Treasuries

Bitcoin ETFs closed the week with $300 million in net inflows despite outflows on Thursday and Friday, including $138 million in net outflows on Friday. The Ethereum ETFs saw $4 million in net inflows on Friday, a welcome reversal.

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were mixed: DOGE +1%, SHIB flat, PEPE -1%, PENGU +3%, TRUMP +2%, SPX +3%, BONK flat.

Robinhood Chain leaders were mostly green after a rough Saturday selloff: Pons +6% to $160 million; AI +8% at $59 million; Cashcat flat at $90 million; GF +85%, Bow +20% and Gage +33% led top movers.

Solana's top movers included Launch (+50x), Kimchi (+70%), Dood (+60%) and Claudia (+50%), while Stonk added 13% to $133 million.

Tokens, Airdrops and Protocols

Hyperliquid led on-chain protocols in weekly revenue with $14.74 million, followed by Pump with $13.76 million, Papertrade with $6.67 million and Collector Crypt with $5.31 million, per DefiLlama.

Solana trading bot Bloom said attackers drained about 9,408 SOL — worth $947,000 — from 49 wallets belonging to nine users by exploiting a third-party module to gain remote code execution. In a statement on X, the team insisted no private keys were compromised and pledged to reimburse 100% of the stolen funds.

Pump.fun announced a $2.5 million Squads competition that kicked off Monday and runs for two weeks, with the top three squads earning prizes based on PNL plus uPNL.

NFTs

NFT leaders were mostly green: Punks flat at 30.7 ETH, BAYC +5% at 6 ETH, Pudgy Penguins +3% at 2.56 ETH. Identity MD (+13%) and Argonauts (+7%) led top movers.

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Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner (@Tyler_Did_It). The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.