Bitcoin (BTC) opened the fourth quarter holding near $84,000, trading at $84,119 with an overnight gain of 1.34% as of October 1. The price sits close to its daily pivot point of $84,255, a placement that signals a market waiting for direction — pivot points are levels intraday traders commonly use to frame directional bias. October also carries seasonal weight in trading circles, having historically often been among Bitcoin's stronger months, a pattern that has earned the month the nickname "Uptober."

The asset trades above its 7-day, 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages, with the 200-day line near $71,356 — a threshold widely watched as a long-term trend gauge. Spot volume on Binance reached roughly $1.57 billion over the past 24 hours, according to figures cited in the report.

Bitcoin Outpaced Stocks and Gold in September

Bitcoin gained roughly 7% in September, according to Santiment data released on October 1. Over the same period, the S&P 500 barely moved, while gold fell more than 6%. The performance gap marked a clear divergence between the leading cryptocurrency and traditional assets heading into the new quarter.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in billions of dollars during the month, including large inflow days in late September. The funds, which launched in January 2024, have become a key channel for institutional access to Bitcoin. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the company led by Michael Saylor, also added 1,665 BTC to its holdings.

Santiment said cooler-than-expected August inflation briefly lowered Treasury yields and reduced expectations for another Federal Reserve rate hike — a reminder of how closely Bitcoin's recent moves have tracked macroeconomic expectations.

Bitcoin rose almost 45% in the third quarter, its largest quarterly gain since 2024. Soft US PCE inflation data recently helped push the price above $84,000.

Analysts Point to Further Gains

Several firms and market commentators laid out constructive outlooks for Bitcoin in the months ahead.

10x Research said October could mark the start of the cryptocurrency's next leg higher. The firm pointed to August, when US federal debt crossed $40 trillion and BTC moved above $80,000. Fears of a hawkish Fed later sent the price back to $76,000, but after Fed Chair Warsh signaled that policy would remain accommodative, BTC climbed to $86,000 in under a week.

BIT, formerly Matrixport, predicts a rally to between $185,000 and $215,000. CNBC Pro contributor Frank Cappelleri said Bitcoin could rise 400% if it repeats its 2022 pattern.

Key Levels and Trader Positioning

Resistance sits at $85,513, followed by $86,908 and the upper Bollinger Band at $88,715. Support lies at $82,860 and then $81,602. The relative strength index reads 62.69, below the 70 threshold conventionally treated as overbought, while the MACD has flattened, with its signal line and main line sitting nearly on top of each other — a configuration generally read as a pause in momentum.

On Binance, top traders hold a long-to-short ratio of 1.42, with 58.7% of positions long, while retail traders sit at 1.36, or 57.6% long. Despite the long bias among larger accounts, the taker buy/sell ratio stands at 0.877, indicating that sellers have been more aggressive than buyers. Open interest fell 3.04% over 24 hours, and the funding rate sits at a neutral 0.008% — a level indicating balanced demand between leveraged long and short positions in perpetual futures markets.

Blockchain.news analyst Rongchai Wang assigns a 55% probability to a daily close above $85,513 within 7 to 14 days, a scenario that could open a path toward $88,715 and later $90,000. The bear case, at 45%, involves a retest of $82,860 and possibly $81,602. A break below the 50-day moving average near $77,708 would challenge the broader uptrend. Given how directly recent inflation prints have moved yields and Bitcoin's price, upcoming US economic data releases remain a focal point for traders weighing those two scenarios.

Bitcoin was most recently trading at $83,708.86 as of 10:18 UTC, according to Blockchain.news live data.

This article is based on reporting originally published by Blockonomi.