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Bitcoin Slips Under $80,000 Ahead of the Fed, and On-Chain Data Points to Profit-Taking, Not Capitulation

NodeWitness Team 7 min read

Bitcoin's drop below $80,000 has been blamed on tech stocks, oil and nerves before Wednesday's Fed decision. On-chain, the week looks different: holders cashed in the most profit since February on Thursday, while the weekend break below $80,000 brought very little selling at a loss.

Bitcoin fell below $80,000 early Monday as traders cut risk ahead of the Federal Reserve's decision on Wednesday, CoinDesk reported, with the largest cryptocurrency down nearly 2% in Asian hours [1]. It was trading at $79,964 at 06:35 UTC, according to the market ticker NodeWitness pulls from CoinGecko [2], about 5.8% below its October 21 high of $84,898 on Binance. On Saturday it touched $79,220, its lowest level since September 18 [3].

Investors broadly expect the Fed to hold rates this week. The question is what Chair Kevin Warsh signals about December. "We're watching how strongly the chair hints at a December hike, that's what matters for crypto," Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at the BTSE exchange, told CoinDesk [1].

How the week unfolded

The slide began on Thursday, October 22, when the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6%, its worst session since June, as doubts about AI spending hit Meta, Nvidia, AMD and Micron [4]. Bitcoin, which had come close to $85,000 the night before, was near $81,400 by the U.S. close [5]. Leveraged crypto positions worth $440.9 million were liquidated in 24 hours, $397 million of them longs, according to CoinGlass data cited by The Block [4].

ETF demand turned the same day. U.S. spot bitcoin funds went from $524.8 million of net inflows on October 21 to $635.6 million of net outflows on October 22, followed by $137.9 million out on October 23 with one fund yet to report, Farside Investors data show [6].

On Saturday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. was evacuating personnel from embassies and bases across the Middle East over the threat of Iranian attacks, bitcoin dropped through $80,000 [7]. By Monday, Brent crude had eased 2% to around $114 a barrel from a six-month high after President Donald Trump said it was "getting to be decision time" on Iran [1].

Thursday's profit-taking

Our node's daily recalculation puts the week's most unusual on-chain reading before the break, not after it. On October 22, coins spent on-chain realized $3.75 billion in profit and $1.41 billion in losses [8]. That profit figure is the highest for a single day since February 6, 2026, and about 13 times this year's daily median of $285 million. SOPR, the ratio of the price a coin is sold at to the price it was bought at, rose to 1.0275, its highest reading since that same February day.

Older coins moved too. Coin days destroyed reached 42.5 million, roughly five times the 2026 median [8]. The node cannot see who is behind a transaction, and some of that volume may be custodians or exchanges shuffling their own wallets. Still, the pattern fits long-held coins being sold into the run toward $85,000.

Date (UTC) SOPR Realized profit Realized loss
Oct 21 1.0083 $723M $150M
Oct 22 1.0275 $3,751M $1,409M
Oct 23 1.0017 $494M $373M
Oct 24 1.0005 $84M $59M
Oct 25 1.0008 $141M $100M

Source: NodeWitness daily recalculation from its own node's blocks [8].

A quiet weekend at the lows

The weekend break below $80,000 left a much smaller footprint. SOPR stayed just above 1 on both days, and realized losses of $59 million on Saturday and $100 million on Sunday came in well under the 2026 daily median of about $367 million [8]. Sellers, on average, got out close to what they paid. The last daily SOPR print below 1 was on October 14.

The next on-chain reference sits lower. In our October 25 UTXO snapshot, the realized price of short-term holders, the average cost of coins moved in the past 155 days, was $75,820, up from $74,602 a week earlier as recent buyers above $80,000 joined the cohort [9]. At Sunday's close that group was 5.7% in profit on average.

The share of supply in profit fell from 68.97% to 63.99% over the same week, even though the closing price dropped only 2.4% [10]. That gap reflects how much supply changed hands near current prices. Our cost distribution shows 1.57 million BTC with a purchase price between $70,000 and $80,000; at $70,000, 43.8% of the evaluable supply would be underwater, against 35.9% at $80,000 [11].

None of the node's cycle indicators is at an extreme. MVRV Z-Score was 0.86 on October 24, in the 40th percentile of its history [12].

The data cannot say whether the short-term holder cost basis will hold. It does show that, so far, the drop has not been accompanied by heavy loss-taking, and that the heaviest profit-taking came before $80,000 gave way. The Fed decision, September PCE inflation data on Thursday and a roughly $11 billion bitcoin options expiry on Friday, flagged by Mudrex, are the next tests [13].

Track the data on our short- and long-term holder realized price, SOPR and supply in loss by price charts. How rates, bonds and oil reach bitcoin is covered in our macro and Fed analysis, and more on prices lives in our Market section.

Sources

Source type in brackets. All web pages accessed on October 26, 2026.

  1. CoinDesk, Shaurya Malwa, Bitcoin slips under $80,000 as traders de-risk ahead of Fed meeting, October 26, 2026, 04:37 UTC. Price move, Jeff Mei (BTSE) quote, Kevin Warsh, Brent and Trump remarks. (Secondary, press)
  2. NodeWitness, market ticker, read at 06:35 UTC on October 26, 2026. CoinGecko price, $79,964, −0.72% over 24 hours. (Primary, own data with third-party price)
  3. NodeWitness, Binance BTC/USDT daily candles (UTC) via /api/market/ohlc. High of $84,898 on October 21, low of $79,220.7 on October 24, previous lower low on September 18 ($76,296). (Primary, own data with third-party price)
  4. The Block, Timmy Shen, Bitcoin slides below $81,500 as tech stock sell-off spreads to Asian equities, October 23, 2026. Nasdaq −2.6%, Meta, Micron, Nvidia and AMD, CoinGlass liquidations. (Secondary, press)
  5. CoinDesk, Stephen Alpher, Live updates: Bitcoin falls back to $81,000, with interest rates tumbling as stocks crack, October 22, 2026. Bitcoin at $81,400 at the U.S. close. (Secondary, press)
  6. Farside Investors, Bitcoin ETF Flow. U.S. spot bitcoin ETF net flows for October 21 (+$524.8M), 22 (−$635.6M) and 23 (−$137.9M, one fund pending). (Primary, database)
  7. CoinDesk, Stephen Alpher, Crypto under weekend pressure, bitcoin slides below $80,000 on U.S. Middle East evacuations, October 24, 2026. Evacuations as reported by The Wall Street Journal. (Secondary, press)
  8. NodeWitness, daily on-chain series (/api/node/onchain-daily) recalculated from our node's blocks through block 973,150 (October 25, 2026). SOPR, realized profit and loss, coin days destroyed; 2026 medians calculated by NodeWitness. (Primary, own data)
  9. NodeWitness, cohort realized prices from UTXO-set snapshots at blocks 971,930 (October 18) and 973,007 (October 25, 2026), 155-day threshold. (Primary, own data)
  10. NodeWitness, supply in profit, weekly snapshots of October 18 and 25, 2026. (Primary, own data)
  11. NodeWitness, supply in loss by price, snapshot at block 973,007 (October 25, 2026), out of 20.01 million evaluable BTC. (Primary, own data)
  12. NodeWitness, cycle indicators (/api/market/cycle-indicators), October 26, 2026. MVRV Z 0.86 (October 24, 40.5th percentile). (Primary, own data)
  13. CNBC TV18, Bitcoin slips below $80,000: Why the crypto market is under pressure, October 26, 2026. Fed meeting dates, PCE release and the options expiry cited by Mudrex. (Secondary, press)

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Last updated: October 26, 2026