Bitcoin recovered modestly to trade near $81,700 after a broader technology-led sell-off, while altcoins and memecoins posted stronger gains. Pepe led the move, rising as much as 14%, as traders assessed the next Federal Reserve meeting, oil prices and renewed derivatives activity.
Bitcoin holds steady while altcoins outperform
Bitcoin rose 0.5% from midnight UTC to around $81,700, after briefly falling to approximately $81,000. Ether gained 0.9% to about $2,490. The broader move was stronger across alternative cryptocurrencies: the CoinDesk 80 index rose 1.4% in the source report, while a memecoin gauge advanced 2.9%.
The crypto rebound followed a difficult session for technology stocks. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6% on Thursday, its sharpest decline since June. Asian markets were more stable in the following session, with South Korea’s Kospi up 0.3% and China’s CSI 300 gaining 1.7%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.25%.
According to CoinDesk, traders are now focused on the Federal Reserve’s Oct. 27-28 meeting. Brent crude was trading near $113, keeping inflation concerns in view. Investors are also monitoring flows into U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Those funds recorded $635 million in net outflows on Thursday, according to SoSoValue data, after attracting more than $1 billion during the first three days of the week.
Derivatives show selective rebuilding
Futures activity cooled after a sharp increase the previous day. Trading volume fell 19% over 24 hours, while liquidations declined 23%. At the same time, total open interest rose 1%. Because bitcoin’s price changed little while open interest increased, the data suggests traders were adding positions rather than merely closing existing ones.
The long-short taker volume ratio leaned slightly toward short positions, at 51.6% compared with 48.4% for longs. However, cumulative volume delta, a measure of whether market orders are predominantly buys or sells, moved close to neutral for most tokens. Most assets had ended the previous day below zero, while the latest readings were generally within 0.05% of zero. Gold-linked token XAUT was the main exception, at about -0.25%.
Bitcoin and ether each saw futures open interest rise by roughly 1% as their prices remained broadly stable. Liquidations fell by about two-thirds for bitcoin and one-third for ether. Bitcoin funding increased to 0.0067% from 0.0041%, meaning long traders were paying slightly more to maintain positions, while ether funding was unchanged.
Positioning was less uniform elsewhere. Funding for BNB and SUI moved from negative to positive, and DOGE also turned positive. Since all three prices rose, long traders were once again paying to hold positions. By contrast, open interest fell sharply in mZEC, SOL, XRP and DOGE, indicating that traders were closing positions rather than simply responding to price movements. ZEC saw the most pronounced reduction, with open interest dropping 8% during a 1.5% price decline.
Pepe leads the token rebound
Pepe was the standout performer among the large group of tracked tokens. The Ethereum-based frog-themed memecoin gained 14% in the source report, its strongest daily advance in a month. The move extended its weekly gain to 23% and its monthly rise to 16%, although no clear catalyst was identified. Its 24-hour trading volume was approximately $353 million, about 10% higher than at the same point a day earlier.
Other memecoins also advanced but remained weaker over the month. Floki, bonk and shiba inu rose between 3.3% and 4.9% during the session, while still showing monthly declines of as much as 16%.
Layer-1 tokens also participated in the recovery. Polkadot and Cosmos each gained more than 5%, taking their weekly increases above 6%. Polkadot nevertheless remained down 2.5% for October, while Cosmos was up 3.6% for the month. In decentralized finance, Uniswap rose 3.5% to around $7.25 and Ethena added 2% to approximately 20 cents.
CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season indicator stood at 58 out of 100, up from 54 on Monday. The reading reflected improving sentiment toward alternative cryptocurrencies while bitcoin remained in a relatively narrow trading range.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data recorded at about 07:59 Tehran time on Oct. 24, 2026, showed bitcoin at $80,605.61, down 1.04% over 24 hours and 1.23% over seven days. The later reading was below the approximately $81,700 level described in the source report.
Litecoin was priced at $56.5632, down 4.66% over both 24 hours and seven days. NEAR Protocol stood at $4.5707, with a 24-hour decline of 7.19% and a seven-day loss of 10.32%.
Pepe was trading at $0.0000044331, down 3.87% over 24 hours but still up 10.93% over seven days. These figures are Moneyiar market data and represent the specified time rather than the earlier market snapshot in the report.
