Daily market key data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.
1. Market Observation
Global financial markets are experiencing significant volatility, with the precious metals market experiencing a rare plunge after consecutive record highs. Spot gold prices plummeted by over 6% at one point, barely holding above 4,000 before retreating back to 4,100, marking its largest single-day drop in 12 years . Market analysts attribute the sell-off to a combination of technical overbought conditions, a stronger dollar, and profit-taking by some investors. However, the ongoing US government shutdown has added significant uncertainty to the market. The absence of key economic data, such as the CFTC Commitment of Shares report, has made it difficult for investors to accurately assess market positions. Meanwhile, the upcoming CPI inflation data faces credibility challenges due to staffing shortages at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Against this backdrop, the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week , but the lack of reliable data has made the future path of monetary policy uncertain.
On the geopolitical front, several European countries are working with Ukraine on a 12-point peace proposal aimed at ending the conflict on the current front. This move echoes former US President Trump's call for a freeze in the conflict, and the parties involved plan to launch a new round of peace talks. Despite market volatility, analysts such as Juan Carlos Artigas of the World Gold Council and Adam Koos of Libertas Wealth Management Group believe that the fundamental factors supporting gold's rise, such as geoeconomic uncertainty and loose monetary policy, remain unchanged. This pullback may simply be a clearance of short-term speculators for the next round of gains.
In the field of artificial intelligence, technological innovation and commercial competition are accelerating simultaneously. OpenAI officially launched its first AI-powered web browser, ChatGPT Atlas, directly challenging Google Chrome's market dominance. The browser deeply integrates ChatGPT, allowing users to summarize and interact with content in a sidebar while browsing any webpage. Its built-in AI agent functionality can even help paying users automate complex tasks like booking flights. The announcement caused a drop in the stock price of Google's parent company, Alphabet. Meanwhile, AI thought leaders are looking further into the future. AI guru Andrej Karpathy praised the DeepSeek OCR paper, sparking a profound discussion on whether pixels are a superior LLM input form over text. He believes that image inputs offer greater compression efficiency and information versatility. Elon Musk offered a more definitive assessment, predicting that in the long term, over 99% of the input and output of AI models will be photons. In addition, the application of AI in the financial field has also been tested in practice. A large-scale model trading test called Alpha Arena was launched on October 18, allowing six mainstream AI models such as GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 Pro to compete in trading in the market using $10,000. DeepSeek has been ranked first for many days. As of 2:00 p.m. today, GPT-5 only has $3,521 left.
The Bitcoin market has recently shown significant volatility. After hitting a high of $114,000, the price encountered resistance and briefly retreated to around $107,460. Data shows that traders are returning to the market after the significant sell-off on October 10th, with total open interest in Bitcoin futures contracts rising from a low of $28 billion to over $32 billion, indicating a return of market confidence. However, analyst views are divided. On the one hand, bullish analysts believe that key support levels remain firm. Traders Rakesh Upadhyay and Daan Crypto Trades both point to $107,000 as a crucial barrier for bulls, while analyst Astronomer believes that prices will eventually break through $114,000. On the other hand, bearish sentiment is also prevalent in the market. Traders such as Roman, Ted Pillows, and Crypto Tony predict that Bitcoin prices may test the $100,000 support level and even fall to $95,000. They primarily cite the lack of sufficient trading volume to support the recent rebound. Analyst Rekt Capital pointed out that Bitcoin is currently facing resistance at the 21-week EMA and needs to hold the historical demand area to lay the foundation for a subsequent rebound.
Ethereum has also faced a critical test in the recent market. After a brief surge to $4,110, its price failed to hold steady and quickly fell back below the key $4,000 level. Trader Philakone identified $4,000 as a "strong resistance level," while analysts Daan Crypto Trades and Jas Crypto also believe that whether Ethereum can break through and sustain above $4,100 will be crucial in determining whether it experiences a deep correction or a brief pause before continuing its upward trajectory. Market data reveals the fundamental reason for its lack of upward momentum: a lack of new buyers. Glassnode data shows that the net spot volume difference, a measure of buy and sell volume, remains negative. Meanwhile, SoSoValue data indicates that spot Ethereum ETFs have experienced net outflows of $640.5 million in six of the past eight days. Technically, Ethereum has formed a bearish flag pattern on the 12-hour chart. If this pattern breaks, its technical target price could reach $3,120, representing approximately 20% downside from the current price. Despite this, some analysts, such as Jelle, remain optimistic, believing that the current pullback is merely a retest of the key breakout level of $4,000, which could be followed by a “rapid upward expansion.”
After attempting to break through the $200 mark, Solana formed a potential "double bottom" technical pattern below $180. Veteran chartist John Bollinger, using his Bollinger Bands indicator, highlighted this potential "W-shaped" reversal, deeming it "a moment to watch." Fellow analyst Lark Davis also highlighted the pattern, noting that a break above the $210 neckline could target as high as $250. Regarding the overall outlook for altcoins , some traders believe that with the pullback in traditional safe-haven assets like gold, risk-seeking capital could flow back into the crypto market, potentially triggering a "boom" for altcoins.
2. Key Data (as of 13:00 HKT on October 22)
(Data sources: Coinglass, Upbit, Coingecko, SoSoValue, Tomars)
Bitcoin: $108,050 (+15.51% YTD), daily spot trading volume $108.37 billion
Ethereum: $3,861 (+15.68% YTD), with a daily spot trading volume of $45.86 billion
Fear and Corruption Index: 25 (panic)
Average gas: BTC: 1 sat/vB, ETH: 0.082 Gwei
Market share: BTC 59.7%, ETH 12.9%
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: BTC, XRP, ETH, F, SOL
24-hour BTC long-short ratio: 48.95%/51.05%
Sector gains and losses: DePIN sector rose 2.87%, AI sector rose 1.99%
24-hour liquidation data: A total of 162,381 people were liquidated worldwide, with a total liquidation amount of US$656 million, including US$279 million in BTC, US$169 million in ETH, and US$22.4894 million in SOL.
BTC medium- and long-term trend channel: upper channel line ($112,125.64), lower channel line ($111,036.75)
ETH medium- and long-term trend channel: upper channel line ($4070.10), lower channel line ($109905.33)
*Note: When the price is higher than the upper and lower edges, it is a medium- to long-term bullish trend; otherwise, it is a bearish trend. When the price is within the range or repeatedly passes through the cost range in the short term, it is in a bottoming or topping state.
3. ETF flows (as of October 21)
Bitcoin ETF: +$477 million, all twelve products recorded positive inflows
Ethereum ETF: +$142 million, all nine products recorded positive inflows
4. Today's Outlook
MBG (MBG) will unlock approximately 15.84 million tokens at 8:00 PM on October 22, accounting for 11.97% of the current circulating supply and worth approximately $17.1 million.
Scroll (SCR) will unlock approximately 82.5 million tokens at 8:00 AM on October 22, representing 43.42% of the current circulating supply and valued at approximately $14.4 million.
SOON (SOON) will unlock approximately 15.21 million tokens at 4:30 PM on October 23rd, accounting for 4.52% of the current circulating supply and worth approximately $12.8 million.
The biggest gains among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization today: ChainOpera AI up 32.6%, MemeCore up 10.2%, Zcash up 7.7%, Saros up 7%, and DoubleZero up 6.4%.
5. Hot News
The Ethereum Foundation transferred 160,000 ETH to its internal 0xc06 wallet
Kadena announced the suspension of operations, and its KDA plummeted by nearly 60%.
Limitless Announces LMTS Token Economics: Ecosystem Rewards Account for 24.37%
Bubblemaps: Ocean Protocol-linked wallets suspected of selling over $100 million in community tokens
SharpLink disclosed an increase of 19,271 ETH, bringing its total holdings to 859,853
Solana announces its Chinese name “Solala” on the X platform
