Bitcoin's bull signal is back, as ETFs sell off

Bitcoin is getting two opposite signals right now. Glassnode's MVRV momentum just turned positive, the same flip that showed up near the end of the 2019 and 2023 bear markets. At the same time, $681 million walked out of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs last week, the most since June. Bitcoin is stuck in the middle near $83,200, and Wednesday's inflation report is the tiebreaker. Our Data Hub moved the regime from risk-off on Monday to mixed this morning, while Fear & Greed slid from 69 to 57. Here's what each side is saying, and the level to watch.

Snapshot

Prices at 10:11 AM ET (14:11 UTC) Tuesday, Oct. 13, via the DC Data Hub live ticker. Fear & Greed 57 (Greed), BTC dominance 59.3%, dollar index 102.28.

The read

Oil and the dollar are running the show. Brent pushed back above $105 on Monday after the deadliest week of Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia since the war began. Bitcoin tagged $84,250 early Monday when oil dipped on Trump's Russian diesel deal, then handed all of it back the moment crude recovered. It's a market that's been told to expect hotter inflation on Wednesday and a Fed hike in December, and it isn't arguing. This morning the dollar index eased to 102.28 from 102.58, and Bitcoin is up a third of a percent. Small relief, not a turn. And it isn't a flight to safety either: on Monday the Nasdaq-100 fund (QQQ) fell 0.70%, NVIDIA 1.29% and the gold fund (GLD) 0.63%. Everything got sold together, which is what a strong dollar does.

Under the surface, crypto is sorting itself by quality. Over the past week Bitcoin is down 3.2%, while ETH is down 7.9%, SOL 11% and DOGE almost 12%. Money isn't leaving crypto so much as huddling in the biggest, most liquid coin, which is why Bitcoin's share of the whole market has climbed to 59.3%. The mood is finally catching down to the price: Fear & Greed went from 69 on Monday to 57 this morning, which honestly is still generous for a week this red. The good news is that nobody's overloaded. Funding on Hyperliquid is barely positive and longs and shorts are close to even, so there's no crowd of leveraged longs waiting to get flushed.

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Three things that matter

• The ETF bid turned into a drain. $681 million left U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs last week, $731 million of it on Wednesday and Thursday alone. With the 10-year Treasury paying 5.24%, big money is getting paid to wait somewhere else.

• The biggest corporate buyer slowed to a crawl. Strategy bought just 250 BTC last week, its smallest buy of 2026, and spent nine times as much buying back its own preferred stock. That's upkeep, not accumulation.

• Wednesday's CPI is the whole week. The consensus is 3.6% for headline inflation and 0.2% for core on the month. Core at 0.2% or lower is the likeliest relief for Bitcoin. Core at 0.3% locks in the December hike and keeps the ETF drain running.

Bitcoin: the chart says recovery, the money says wait

Start with the good news. MVRV compares Bitcoin's price with the average price every coin last moved at, which is a rough stand-in for what the average holder paid. Glassnode's chart tracks that ratio against its own one-year average. When it climbs back above that average, it has been an early sign that a bear market is wearing out. It happened in 2019, it happened in 2023, and it's happening now: MVRV is 1.54 against a one-year average of 1.44, per Glassnode's figures as shared by Coin Bureau. In plain terms: the average holder is in profit, and that profit just started growing again. Our Data Hub's on-chain read agrees. Hash rate is flagged bullish, fees are near zero and on-chain volume is $348 million, also flagged bullish. The network isn't in distress, even while the price chops.

Fair warning before anyone pops a cork: after the 2019 flip, that same line slipped back under its average late that year and again in the March 2020 crash before the bull run really took hold. A signal like this tells you the floor is firming. It doesn't tell you the ride is smooth.

Now the other side. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs gave back $681.1 million last week, the biggest weekly withdrawal since late June, per SoSoValue data reported by CoinDesk. Most of it landed in two days: $487 million on Wednesday and $244 million on Thursday, the same two days Bitcoin fell from an $87,000 rejection to a two-week low of $80,400.

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The two biggest corporate buyers are easing off

Strategy bought 250 BTC for about $21.5 million between October 5 and 11, at an average of $86,194. That's its smallest buy of 2026, and its slowest week of buying since December, per our Data Hub. The bigger line in Monday's release: Strategy also spent a record $192.4 million buying back its STRC preferred stock, roughly nine times what it put into Bitcoin. With MSTR at $154, down 53% over twelve months, the old trick of selling stock at a premium to buy coins doesn't work like it used to. So the company is paying down the paper that costs it 9% to 10% a year.

Ethereum's steadiest buyer is about to clock out too. BitMine added 12,532 ETH last week, bringing it to 6,028,946 ETH, or 4.9% of all ether in circulation. Chairman Tom Lee has set a 5% hard cap, which leaves BitMine about 76,000 coins from the line where it says it stops buying.

Self-custody has a supply-chain problem

Our Data Hub ranks this as today's most urgent story for anyone holding their own keys. Ledger confirmed over the weekend that at least one device tied to recent losses carried an unauthorized hardware implant, and security reporting since says an implant like this could send recovery phrases out over a mobile (LTE) connection. Every confirmed case so far involves wallets sold through CryptoBilis, an authorized reseller in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Bitquery has traced $93.2 million drained from 315 wallets, and Tether has frozen $10 million of it.

Ledger's guidance is blunt: if you bought from CryptoBilis, don't set up an unused device, and if you already did, move everything to a new seed on hardware bought directly from Ledger. The uncomfortable part is that "buy only from authorized sellers" was the defense, and this was an authorized seller.

From the desk

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While the majors bled, the altcoin side threw a party. STRK more than doubled on the week, up 120.9%, and it gave back about 20% on Monday ahead of Thursday's unlock of 3.37% of its supply. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season Index hit 65, a one-year high. But most of the leaders are supply stories (buybacks, vesting dates, short squeezes) moving through order books that hold about a third less money near the price than at the start of 2025, per CoinDesk Research. That's a trade, not a new regime.

Levels

From the DC Data Hub Market Pulse, Oct. 13, 7:57 AM EDT. Regime: mixed, up from risk-off on Monday.

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Also on the radar

• Russia opens a bank door to crypto. Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, got central bank approval to operate a crypto exchange, per CoinGape. That's a state-backed channel into a market that's been settling cross-border trade in crypto for years.

• A $5 billion custody precedent. A UK High Court ruling on Chinese fraud victims' claims to about $5 billion of seized Bitcoin sets a cross-border legal precedent that every institutional custody desk will be reading.

This week

• Wednesday, Oct. 14, 8:30 a.m. ET: September CPI. Consensus 3.6% headline (prior 3.4%), core 0.2% on the month. Energy is doing the heavy lifting: Deutsche Bank has motor fuel up 9.6% on the month.

• Today and Wednesday: big bank earnings. JPMorgan, Goldman, Citi and Wells Fargo report today; Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock on Wednesday.

• Thursday, Oct. 15: the busy one. PPI and retail sales at 8:30 a.m. ET, Fed Chair Warsh with the IMF's Georgieva, and the STRK unlock.

Bottom line

The on-chain picture looks like the early part of a recovery, not the start of a breakdown. The money picture looks like a market that would rather sit in Treasuries at 5.2% until the Fed shows its hand. Bitcoin near $83,200 has absorbed both so far. Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET decides whether it keeps absorbing. The numbers to watch: $81,000 on the way down, $84,000 on the way up.

If you want the live version of everything above, the daily Market Pulse, the 500-plus asset research desk and the ETF flow tracker all come with the Discover Crypto community on Skool. Every past live call is recorded and waiting from day one, so you start caught up. Try it free for 7 days.

Talk next week,

Discover Crypto Team

Prices, Fear & Greed, dominance and the dollar index via the DC Data Hub at 14:11 UTC, Oct. 13. ETF flows via SoSoValue (reported by CoinDesk) and Farside Investors. MVRV chart via Glassnode; MVRV figures via Coin Bureau citing Glassnode. Strategy via strategy.com and its Oct. 12 release; BitMine via its press release. Ledger exploit tracing via Bitquery. Oil via CBS News; CPI consensus via FinanceFeeds and Deutsche Bank. Levels, regime, weekly changes, positioning, on-chain read, Monday's stock moves, Sberbank and the UK ruling via the DC Data Hub Market Pulse (7:57 AM EDT, Oct. 13). Ledger LTE detail via security reporting. Performers and ETF flow chart via DC Research. Education, not financial advice.