Bitcoin is back near the danger zone, after a bruising week for risk assets; the largest cryptocurrency is trading around $106,000, extending a slide that drove it to the lowest level since June and left it roughly 17% off its recent record.
The retreat followed a broad selloff across stocks and digital assets late in the week.
The $100,000 mark is more than a round number, it captures a dense band of recent cost basis for buyers and sits just above an on-chain support cluster that analysts have tracked since midyear.
Glassnode’s cost-basis mapping shows heavy historical activity between roughly $93,000 and $100,000, which can act as a magnet if spot cracks lower.
That is the “air pocket” technicians worry about if bids pull back and stops cascade.
Research firm Kaiko reported that order books thinned out aggressively during last week’s shock move, with market makers stepping back as selling accelerated.
When depth is scarce, small sell programs move price farther and faster, which is exactly the dynamic that produced the latest flush. If spot loses $100,000 in a thin book, follow-on pressure can force dealers to hedge, amplifying the slide.
After months where the funds reliably absorbed selling, U.S. products saw a net outflow on Friday.
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Farside Investors’ dashboard logged an estimated $269 million pulled across the complex on October 17, interrupting what had been a sizable cumulative haul since launch.
Persistent outflows would remove a key source of demand, making a defense of $100,000 tougher. Farside Investors’ Bitcoin ETF flow dataset shows the daily prints.
Funding rates on perpetual futures turned slightly negative across venues after the washout, a sign that shorts are paying longs and that speculative positioning has flipped cautious.
Options activity also tilted toward protective puts in the wake of the selloff, with billions in notional set to expire this month that could influence near-term flows if spot strays from common strike clusters.
All of this follows what several desks described as crypto’s biggest single-day deleveraging on record.
More than $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated during the October 10 to 11 downdraft, according to multiple analyses.
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That purge knocked bitcoin toward $105,000 and sparked a rush to hedge, a posture that has persisted into this week.
What would avert a deeper slide? First, a convincing rebound from the $100,000 to $109,000 band would keep the market inside the summer’s well-traveled range, which is where much of 2025’s cost basis sits.
Second, ETF flows need to stabilize, since those vehicles have been the marginal buyer on weak days.
Finally, liquidity has to rebuild after last week’s shock, so that any test of six figures meets real depth rather than a vacuum.
On-chain studies suggest smaller wallets have resumed net accumulation since early October, even as large holders took profits into strength over the summer. Corporate treasuries also remain a source of structural demand.
Earlier this quarter, for instance, MicroStrategy expanded its bitcoin trove, a reminder that balance-sheet buyers can absorb weakness when momentum fades.
Policy and market structure remain wild cards. Washington is still debating where crypto fits inside the financial rulebook; in September Senate Democrats revealed a plan to transform the US crypto market.
The altcoin rally heats up narrative that dominated early fall has flipped to defense for now, which tends to pull capital back to bitcoin during stress.
Holding $100,000 would keep bitcoin’s uptrend intact and buy the market time to rebuild depth. Losing it would likely invite a fast trip through a poorly supported zone toward the mid-$90,000s, unless ETF demand reappears quickly.
In a week when flows turned negative and liquidity thinned, the burden of proof sits with the bulls.
