Bitcoin surrendered its post-Fed recovery, falling approximately 1.79% between Wednesday evening’s and Thursday morning’s market snapshots. Two Federal Reserve policymakers favored a quarter-
Bitcoin slipped under $80,000 on October 29 as a post-Federal Reserve recovery unraveled, exposing weakening technical momentum and heavier liquidations among leveraged bullish traders.
The reversal followed the Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain its benchmark interest rate at 3.75%–4.00%. Chair Kevin Warsh warned that inflation remained too high, while two policymakers dissented in favor of another quarter-point increase.
The market response illustrates a distinction that matters for cryptocurrency valuations: holding borrowing costs steady does not necessarily mean financial conditions are becoming more supportive of risk-taking.
The most consequential detail in Wednesday’s decision was the disagreement over whether monetary policy was restrictive enough.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted 10–2 to hold rates steady. Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack opposed the decision, preferring a 25-basis-point increase, according to the Federal Reserve’s official statement.
The statement described economic expansion as strong, supported by resilient domestic spending, robust capital investment and productivity growth. Inflation remained elevated, leaving policymakers focused on returning it to their 2% target.
For cryptocurrency investors, the distinction is between a pause in tightening and an actual improvement in monetary conditions.
An unchanged policy rate preserves the prevailing cost of short-term dollar funding. It does not automatically reduce Treasury yields, improve market liquidity or make leveraged positions less expensive to maintain.
The two dissenting votes also complicate expectations that the central bank’s next move will necessarily be a cut. Warsh’s warning that inflation remains too high reinforces the possibility that restrictive policy could persist even without another immediate increase.
This creates a difficult backdrop for speculative assets: economic resilience gives the Fed room to remain patient, while elevated borrowing costs continue to compete with riskier investments for capital.
The daily Bitcoin chart shows that Thursday’s decline developed within an existing weakening price structure rather than appearing in isolation.
After reaching highs above $87,000 in early October, Bitcoin formed a sequence of lower highs. A descending resistance line connecting the second half of October continued to limit recovery attempts.
The latest daily candle opened at $81,249.32 and reached $81,289.72 before falling to $79,586.17. At the time of writing, the price stood near $79,780, approximately 1.81% below the daily open.
Bitcoin tests descending support as bearish momentum persists. Chart by Alexander Zdravkov, TradingView.
The rejection occurred near the descending trendline, leaving the attempted recovery without a sustained breakout.
Momentum readings were consistent with that structure. The 14-day Relative Strength Index stood at 41.80, below its moving average of 46.58. The MACD line remained beneath its signal line, with a negative histogram reading of -254.76.
Taken together, the indicators suggest that the recovery lacked sufficient momentum to reverse the sequence of lower highs.
Two price scenarios now deserve attention:
The derivatives market experienced substantial forced position closures as cryptocurrency prices weakened.
According to CoinGlass, $374.01 million in leveraged positions were liquidated over the preceding 24 hours, affecting 84,714 traders.
Long liquidations totaled $218.99 million, compared with $155.02 million in short positions. Bullish traders therefore accounted for approximately 58.6% of the reported losses, exceeding short liquidations by nearly $64 million.
Bitcoin contributed $97.06 million to the total, followed by Ethereum at $81.57 million. Together, the two cryptocurrencies represented approximately 47.8% of market-wide liquidations.
The largest individual liquidation was a $6.53 million ETHUSDT position on Binance.
Yet Bitcoin-specific open interest showed a considerably smaller adjustment than the liquidation figures might suggest.
Outstanding Bitcoin derivatives positions stood near $27.8 billion, down 0.82% over 24 hours. Perpetual-contract open interest declined 1.03%, while dated futures increased 4.83%.
The distinction matters because perpetual contracts dominate the reported Bitcoin derivatives exposure, accounting for approximately $26.7 billion, compared with about $1 billion in dated futures.
The contrasting percentage changes indicate that outstanding exposure did not contract uniformly across contract types. However, they do not establish a direct rotation from perpetuals into dated futures.
Open interest measured in dollar terms can also change with underlying prices, while new positions may offset contracts closed elsewhere. Determining whether investors were actively shifting exposure would require contract-level positioning, funding rates and futures-basis data.
There is another important limitation: the $374.01 million liquidation figure covers the entire cryptocurrency market over a rolling 24-hour window. It cannot be attributed exclusively to the Fed decision.
The available evidence instead points to a market where leveraged bullish positions suffered disproportionately, while the outstanding Bitcoin futures market remained comparatively resilient in aggregate.
Selling extended across major cryptocurrencies, although the magnitude of losses differed considerably.
Ethereum declined 1.97% over 24 hours, while Solana and XRP fell more sharply. BNB stood apart from the broader trend, remaining positive over both the daily and weekly periods.
The difference is relevant because it suggests the decline was not a uniform repricing of every large cryptocurrency. Investors were reducing exposure unevenly, with some altcoins showing greater sensitivity to the market reversal.
OCTOBER 29, 2026 Cryptocurrency Market Snapshot Prices at the time of writing ASSET PRICE 24H 7D Bitcoin (BTC) $79,779.98 -1.43% -2.82% Ethereum (ETH) $2,308.10 -1.97% -4.90% Solana (SOL) $99.68 -2.33% -4.46% XRP $1.28 -2.86% -3.81% BNB $748.00 +0.48% +1.56% Dogecoin (DOGE) $0.07765 -2.84% -2.43% Source: CoinMarketCap, October 29, 2026. Percentage changes reflect rolling periods and may differ from price movements between individual snapshots.The broader cryptocurrency market capitalization fell to approximately $2.67 trillion, while the Fear & Greed Index stood at 43, down from 46 in the previous evening’s reading.
Bitcoin’s next test is whether sellers can maintain control below the descending trendline while derivatives positioning adjusts.
A further price decline accompanied by falling open interest would suggest continued contraction in outstanding leveraged exposure. Conversely, a recovery in price alongside rising open interest would indicate renewed participation, although the direction of newly opened positions would still require additional data.
For now, the combination of a failed technical recovery, disproportionate long liquidations and a Fed unwilling to signal imminent easing leaves Bitcoin vulnerable to another test of October’s lower trading range.
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