Bitcoin fell below $82,000 as a sell-off in technology stocks and renewed conflict in the Middle East weighed on markets. Its intraday loss reached 2.9%, with the price sliding to $81,650 in its sharpest decline in two weeks. With oil prices rising roughly 3%, losses across most major cryptocurrencies exceeded 2%.
Third-quarter results from Tesla and Meta brought questions about artificial intelligence spending back into focus. Shares in both companies fell roughly 3% in premarket trading. Chipmaking equipment supplier Lam Research, meanwhile, warned that supply chain bottlenecks could affect its revenue outlook despite beating expectations in its fiscal first quarter. Its shares dropped 8% before the market opened.
The sell-off also spread to Asian markets. Chinese stocks entered a bear market, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell more than 3%, South Korea’s Kospi declined 3.5%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 2.7%. Around 90 minutes before U.S. markets opened, Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1.7%, while S&P 500 futures had lost 1%.
ETF inflows continue, but a sustained rally requires consistent demand
Despite falling prices, demand for U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recovered. According to SoSoValue, the funds recorded more than $1 billion in net inflows over the first three trading days of the week. Giottus CEO Vikram Subburaj said early signs of improving institutional demand were emerging, but inflows would need to continue before a stronger recovery could be confirmed.
Historical data shows that ETF demand was higher and more consistent during Bitcoin’s strongest rallies. Between January and March 2024, Bitcoin rose 79%, with average daily net inflows of $294 million. During the 96% rally from August to December 2024, that figure stood at $202 million, while the 53% advance between April and July 2025 was accompanied by average daily inflows of $248 million.
Across the combined 199 trading days in these three periods, the funds attracted $46.7 billion. Average daily inflows reached approximately $235 million, exceeding $500 million on 39 days and $1 billion on six days. By comparison, daily inflows have averaged roughly $86 million since July 1. Only seven days during that period recorded inflows above $500 million, and none reached $1 billion.
In derivatives markets, trading volume increased while the dollar value of open interest declined. Crypto derivatives volume rose 19% to $226.6 billion, and liquidations climbed 52% to $431.1 million. Open interest fell 2.46% to $141.8 billion. The relatively even split between long and short positions indicated that liquidations were not concentrated entirely on one side of the market.
The decline in the value of Bitcoin and Ether open interest largely tracked their price losses. In contrast, open interest in ZEC, NEAR, UNI, LINK, and SUI fell faster than prices, indicating more pronounced position closures. Open interest increased in contracts linked to gold, tokenized gold, silver, and crude oil.
Altcoin losses deepen as Monero breaks away from the market
Altcoins suffered steeper selling than Bitcoin. The CoinDesk 80 index fell 3.2%, while the CoinDesk 5 index declined 2.5%. Ether lost 2.6%, falling to around $2,400. Despite Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade going live overnight, SOL dropped 2.4% to trade at approximately $104.
The DeFi sector fell 5.6%, making it one of the hardest-hit areas. Curve dropped 8.2% to $0.37, while Ethena declined 7.2% and Uniswap lost 5%. Ethena’s monthly loss reached approximately 25%, while Uniswap fell roughly 20% in October despite recording all-time-high trading fee revenue in September.
Celestia declined 3.7%, bringing its weekly loss to 9% and reducing its monthly gain to approximately 31%. The project is scheduled to unlock 5.58 million TIA on October 31. LayerZero fell 4.2%, Worldcoin dropped 7.3%, The Sandbox declined 5.1%, and Starknet lost 6.1%. The Pump.fun token also fell 6%, taking its monthly loss to roughly 19%.
Monero bucked the broader market, rising 4.9% to approximately $651. With its monthly gain reaching around 19%, XMR futures open interest exceeded $300 million this week, approaching January’s record. Another privacy-focused cryptocurrency, Zcash, fell 4.8% to approximately $1,252.
MemeToro aims to enter the meme coin market with an AI-powered platform
This backdrop in altcoins makes a project’s stage of development another consideration alongside price when assessing new investment opportunities. One early-stage option in the meme coin sector, MemeToro ($MT), is developing an AI-powered token launch platform on BNB Chain. Its approach centers on making the process of selecting new meme coin ideas and setting their launch terms publicly accessible.
In the proposed system, an AI agent scans news and trending topics on X to generate meme coin ideas and publishes the reasoning behind its selections. Supply, pricing, and funding terms are recorded in a document prepared for each project. These terms are intended to be enforced through a smart contract called FairLaunchEscrow; the AI is not expected to manage investor funds directly.
The project’s GitHub repository makes the AI component, draft contract, and tests available for review under the MIT license. However, the team describes the project as still being in the initial product and architecture development stage. According to the repository’s documentation, there is no functioning end-to-end token launch system yet. Token creation, liquidity provision, testnet deployment, and independent security reviews remain on the roadmap.
According to the token allocation, 71% of the total supply of 1.2 billion MT, or 852 million tokens, has been set aside for the public sale. The team allocation is 2%, with the remaining supply distributed among exchange reserves, marketing partnerships, MemeToro Trading, and rewards. The marketing partnership allocation has a 24-month vesting schedule.
According to the presale information published by the project, MT is being offered at $0.00649 per token in Stage 9. The sale model предусматриes higher prices in subsequent stages. However, this is a presale pricing mechanism; it does not mean the token will follow the same trajectory once it begins trading on the market.
On security, it is also necessary to distinguish between the token and the platform under development. According to MemeToro, the MT token contract has been audited by Coinsult, SolidProof, and BlockSAFU. However, independent audits of the token launch and funding contracts have not yet been completed. The team’s use of pseudonyms and the product’s early stage are additional factors to consider.
With ETF inflows so far unable to halt selling pressure on Bitcoin, altcoin losses show that new projects are also preparing to enter a difficult market environment. For MemeToro, the decisive factors will be turning its published code into a working product and completing the contract audits. For those interested in examining the project at an early stage, its open-source code and development roadmap provide a concrete starting point. Full details: memetoro.com
