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

Bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies spent the session in the red before rebounding off Monday's lows, with BTC holding at $83.4K after a bruising stretch. Altcoins fared far worse, tumbling 5-12% in a drawdown that left only four of the top 100 coins in the green. ETF flows remain a heavy drag, with October now deep in the red for both Bitcoin and Ethereum spot funds. Elsewhere, NFT marketplace Blur announced its shutdown, and Robinhood Chain leaders kept falling despite comments from Vlad, with Stonk slipping below $100 million.

Bitcoin Gets Spooked as 'Uptober' Lets Down

Uptober — a nickname for October, historically one of Bitcoin's stronger months — has been anything but. BTC is sitting at $83K, down 3.2% on the week. The leading cryptocurrency topped out near $87K early last week, then slid to $81K on Monday — a roughly 7% drawdown — before bouncing modestly.

Sentiment followed price. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which blends volatility, momentum, social and survey inputs into a single reading, fell to 56, a neutral level, down from 67 a week ago and well off its August peak of 82, the year's high. That puts the gauge essentially back to where it stood before the summer rally that had Tom Lee and CryptoQuant's Ki Young Ju calling the end of the bear market.

Alts took it worse. Over the last seven days, SOL is down 11%, HYPE 12%, DOGE 12%, XRP 10% and ETH 8%. Prediction markets have cooled too: Myriad odds of BTC hitting $87.5K in October fell from 55% to 45%, while a dip to $80K is now priced at 56%.

As for the drivers, the common view is that this is a macro problem, not a crypto problem.

• Oil: Brent topped $101 last week on ship attacks around the Strait of Hormuz and is now trading near $110, even after Trump said the U.S. won't go to war with Iran before the midterms.
• Yields: The 30-year Treasury hit 5.70%, its highest since 2002. It's now at 5.60%, with the 10-year at 5.24%.
• ETFs: Spot BTC ETFs bled about $680M last week and another $65M yesterday — flows many treat as a proxy for institutional demand — and are net -$451M for October. ETH ETFs are even worse, with $720M in net outflows in October.

Analysts are torn on how to interpret this macro backdrop. Capital.com's Daniela Hathorn summed it up by saying investors are still treating Bitcoin as a risk asset, not a geopolitical hedge. CoinShares' James Butterfill offered the bull counterpoint, stating that if yields are rising on fears about U.S. debt rather than strong growth, BTC starts to look less like a risk asset and more like an alternative to government money.

The next catalyst is U.S. inflation data, with CPI due out this Wednesday. A cool print could pull yields lower and give risk assets room to run. A hot one, with oil at $110, reopens the rate-hike conversation — and neutral could slide toward fear quickly. Until then, expect more chop.

Macro, Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors are red but rebounding after Monday's selloff: BTC -0.3% at $83.4K; ETH -2% at $2,500; SOL -5% at $106.6; HYPE -6% at $82; ZEC -8% at $1,195. Top alt movers include STX (+9%), JST (+1%) andIA (+1%).

In traditional markets, oil fell 2% to $92, while gold added 0.3% to $4,200. Stock futures are mixed despite oil and yields falling: the Dow is up 0.16% and the Nasdaq is down 0.6%.

Regulation, Security and Business

• The CFTC moved to define prediction market contracts as swaps while carving out casino-style gambling, putting them under federal rather than state authority. Selig said event contracts sit squarely in the CFTC's remit, and casino products are not derivatives. The reclassification reaches a sector crypto traders increasingly use as a sentiment gauge — the same event-contract markets whose Bitcoin odds shifted with this week's selloff.
• Ledger said every confirmed case in the $87 million wallet drain involves devices sold by one reseller, Southeast Asian distributor CryptoBilis. The company confirmed an unauthorized hardware implant in at least one device, and CryptoBilis has stopped selling. The case underscores the supply-chain risk that can ride along third-party resale channels.
• XRP Ledger developers patched a bug that could have let someone create XRP out of nothing — a flaw that had sat unnoticed in the payment engine since 2015, a reminder of how long dormant code risks can linger in core payment infrastructure.
• Standard Chartered started holding Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin for institutions through its Dubai branch. The bank is also working with Ripple and LMAX so clients can use RLUSD sitting at the bank as collateral for trades without moving it — a marquee example of a traditional bank expanding into stablecoin services.
• Bitcoin life insurer Meanwhile raised $37.5 million in a round led by Bain Capital Crypto, taking total funding past $180 million. The Sam Altman-backed, Bermuda-licensed company sells policies where customers pay premiums in Bitcoin and their families are paid out in Bitcoin.
• Morgan Stanley now expects to support tokenized equities on its alternative trading system in Q1 2027, rather than the second half of this year. Tokenized equities are blockchain-based versions of stocks.

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

The Bitcoin ETFs saw $65M in net outflows on Monday, while the ETH ETFs saw $85M in outflows and continue their deep outflow streak.

Strategy, the largest publicly known corporate holder of bitcoin, bought 250 BTC for $21.5 million at an average price of $86,194 — above the current spot price — between October 5 and 11, while repurchasing 1.93 million STRC shares for $192.4 million.

Bitmine bought 12,532 ETH for about $32 million and now holds 4.9% of all Ethereum, placing it among the largest corporate ETH treasuries — roughly 100,000 coins from its target.

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were red: DOGE -4%, SHIB -5%, PEPE -4%, PENGU -7%, TRUMP -3%, SPX -5%, BONK -7%.

Robinhood Chain leaders were red and continued the downtrend: Pons fell 15% to $190M, AI dropped 10% to $86M, and Cashcat slid 16% to $100M. Standard (+43%), ZZZ (+55%) and VRAX (+40%) led the top movers.

On Solana, the top movers included Crawlerpad (+8100%), Load (+3800%), Humph (+6000%) and Batona (+3800%).

Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Blur announced that its front end will be deprecated on Nov 12, 2026, signaling the final shutdown of the project. The marketplace led NFT trading volume for much of 2023.

Papertrade led onchain protocols in revenue on Monday with $5.9M, followed by Hyperliquid with $2.36M and Pump.fun with $2.29M.

Pump.fun, the Solana memecoin launchpad, earned $15.76 million in fees last week — its second straight week above $15 million — and burned $7.30 million of PUMP.

What's Happening in NFTs?

NFT leaders were red as Blur announced its shutdown: Punks were flat at 31.5 ETH, BAYC fell 17% to 5.09 ETH and Pudgy dropped 19% to 2.2 ETH.

Quotrons (+26%) and Argonauts (+19%) led the top movers, while Statements gained 90%.