Bitcoin Falls Below Its $84,000 Cost Basis
Plus, BitMine says it will stop buying ETH at 5% of supply
gm, Defiers!
These are the biggest stories in DeFi and crypto:
- Bitcoin fell below its $84,000 cost-basis level
- Moody's rated Sky B3 and flagged its thin capital
- BitMine will stop buying ETH at 5% of supply
- Polymarket's Coplan named no token or date at TOKEN2049
- Hyperliquid has a Singapore base but no MAS license
Research desks spent the week naming $84,000 as bitcoin's support level. Bitcoin has traded below it since late Tuesday. On Wednesday only nine of the 125 largest tokens rose.
Bitcoin fell in two legs. Late Tuesday it fell 2.1% in about 20 minutes on Coinbase, to $83,551, and Coinalyze counted $83 million of bitcoin long liquidations. At Wednesday's U.S. open it fell again, to $82,717, on the heaviest hourly volume of the session. No exchange, protocol or regulator announced anything in either window. Bitcoin traded at $83,181 at 6 p.m. ET, down 2.9% on the day. Also on Wednesday, BitMine chairman Tom Lee said the company will stop buying ETH at 5% of supply.
The Federal Reserve raised rates by a quarter point on Sept. 16, its first increase since 2023. Bitcoin reached $86,355 on Sept. 21, its highest price since January, and two days later it fell back through the $86,000 ETF cost basis. Spot bitcoin ETFs still took in nearly $3 billion in the seven sessions to Sept. 25. Spot ether ETFs have recorded six straight sessions of outflows since Sept. 29, a total of $407.9 million. BlackRock's ETHA accounted for all of Tuesday's $201.9 million. Since late September, bitcoin has failed three times to reach its $87,722 yearly open.
Bitfinex counts 867,000 BTC with a cost basis near $84,000, the largest cluster in the market. Above that price 75% of supply is in profit, so the holders in that cluster are now at a loss. Funding on OKX, Deribit and Hyperliquid stayed at baseline through the decline and never turned negative. Negative funding would have shown traders paying to hold short positions. Glassnode puts the next cluster of liquidation levels between $81,700 and $83,300, where a further drop can force leveraged longs to sell. Bitcoin is inside that band now.
Bitfinex says a recovery depends on ETF inflows returning toward the $340 million daily average of the September rally. Ether also loses a steady buyer. BitMine, the largest public-company holder of ETH, needs about 100,000 more ETH to reach its cap, and then it stops buying. BitMine says it will keep its holdings and its staking business.
Read more below!
Bitcoin Holds Below $84,000 Cost-Basis Level as Only Nine of 125 Top Tokens Rise
Bitcoin stayed below $84,000 through the first three hours of New York trading after breaking the level twice. Ether fell 4.9% to $2,565, while XRP lost 5.7% and Solana 4.7%. Solana applications led the decline, with Jito down 13.4% and Jupiter down 11%. Uniswap fell 9.2% on $784.9 million of volume. DeFi TVL fell 3.3% to $93.21 billion as collateral repriced. Stablecoin supply rose 0.52% over seven days to $314.52 billion.
Firelight Protocol, an onchain cover and staking protocol, launched on October 6. Digital asset holders can stake their assets and earn rewards, while protocols across any chain gain scalable, data-driven protection against major technical and economic risk.
You get:
- Cover against smart contract and protocol risk
- Staking rewards based on real economic activity.
- An independent panel of leading security and risk firms that reviews cover events.
- Contracts audited by OpenZeppelin, Coinspect, and 0xMacro
Moody's Rates Sky B3, Flagging Thin Capital Buffer
Moody's assigned Sky Protocol a B3 counterparty risk rating with a stable outlook on Oct. 6, a speculative-grade score. It cited about $90 million of tangible common equity against $10 billion of managed assets, a ratio of about 0.9%. Moody's credited Sky with low historical losses and solid profitability, but an upgrade requires capital above 2.5% of assets. If losses exceed capital, Sky must mint and sell governance tokens, and if that fails, USDS and DAI would be written down.
BitMine Will Stop Buying ETH at 5% of Supply, Tom Lee Says
BitMine chairman Tom Lee said the company will stop buying ETH once it owns 5% of supply. BitMine held 6,016,414 ETH as of Oct. 4, about 4.9% of the 122.1 million supply figure it uses. Lee said it needs about 100,000 more, which is roughly seven weeks of buying at last week's pace of 15,112 ETH. The company says it will keep its holdings, and 5,067,309 of its ETH are staked.
Coplan Stops Short of Mentioning a Polymarket Token at TOKEN2049
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan did not announce a token at TOKEN2049 Singapore, two days after teasing an announcement. He said the company is exploring an onchain asset tied to Polymarket's economics, with no structure, date or mechanism attached. Coplan also said Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE parent, is one of Polymarket's largest shareholders and is working with regulators on onchain stocks. He described Polymarket as a regulated U.S. exchange and clearinghouse that is about to have a futures commission merchant.
Hyperliquid Confirms Singapore Base but Says It Has No MAS License
Hyperliquid Labs told the Financial Times it is based in Singapore and confirmed it holds no license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. People familiar with MAS's thinking told the FT the regulator considers Hyperliquid outside its jurisdiction because it is decentralized. Singapore's 2020 rules cover payment-token derivatives only on approved exchanges. MAS said it would not regulate such products offered elsewhere, and retail traders on unregulated venues give up legal protections.
Other Stories Worth Your Time
Binance Adds JPMorgan and Eli Lilly bStocks as Margin Collateral — Binance accepts four equity-linked tokens, including JPMorgan and Eli Lilly, at 50% collateral ratios, and freezes their index prices when U.S. equity markets close.
Trader Frogman Drained of $4 Million on the First Morning of TOKEN2049 — onchain records show $4 million left the trader's Solana and BNB Chain wallets in 46 minutes during TOKEN2049. He says he found no sign of a breach.
Ledger Launches Wrapped-Bitcoin Loans Through Morpho — Ledger's Crypto Loan lets users borrow USDC or USDT against wrapped bitcoin on Morpho, at a 50% default loan-to-value, a 1% fee and an 86% liquidation threshold.
Lido Unveils Morpho-Based Lending Protocol for Staking Loops — Lido contributors plan a Morpho Blue fork for leveraged staking borrowers and target a fourth-quarter launch. DAO votes and technical disclosures are still ahead.
GSR Commits $100 Million to Hare Vault Business — the market maker launched Hare with Turtle and a $100 million commitment. Its first Aave-powered stablecoin and tokenized-gold vaults have no opening date yet.
Cardano's Programmable Token Standard Goes Live With Issuer Controls — the standard is live on mainnet with optional issuer controls, including freezes and forced transfers. Wallets, DEXs and lending protocols must change their integrations.
Injective’s Meridian Upgrade Expands Controls for Tokenized Assets — the mainnet upgrade expands controls for permissioned tokens and starts private RFQ trading tests. The CypherOS privacy platform comes in a later upgrade.
ZKsync Opens Prividium Core Code Under Apache 2.0 — Matter Labs released Prividium Core under Apache 2.0 on Sept. 8 and keeps enterprise tools commercial. It says the Bundesbank is testing a self-hosted deployment.
NEAR Adds Robinhood Chain to Its Multichain App — near.com now supports Robinhood Chain deposits, withdrawals, payments and ETH/USDG swaps, with NEAR Intents handling the cross-chain routing between networks.
Muneeb Ali Pledges IP Transfer to Stacks Endowment in CEO Plan — Muneeb Ali's 30-day plan as Stacks Labs CEO includes an IP transfer to the endowment, a two-year roadmap and a public holder call.
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