Crypto 29.10.2026: BTC below $80,000, Binance incidents

Global Crypto Market on 29th October: Bitcoin Below $80,000, Suspicious Binance Hot Wallet Drain in the Evening

On Thursday, 29th October, the global cryptocurrency market closed the day with a moderate decline before being shaken in the evening by suspicions of a large-scale security incident at the Binance exchange. During the day, Bitcoin traded around the $80,000 level (approximately -1.2% to -1.7% over 24 hours, according to various sources), but according to Fortune data at 8:45 AM ET (12:45 PM UTC), BTC was priced at $80,036.60 - $1,323 less than the previous morning. Ethereum at the same time was around $2,320 (approximately -1.8%). The total market capitalisation, according to Coin Gabbar data (4:15 AM UTC on 29th October), was approximately $2.77 trillion (-1.3%). The background was dominated by the US Federal Reserve's (Fed) decision on 28th October to maintain rates, caution ahead of tech giants' quarterly results, and the evening's events surrounding Binance. This article is a compilation of facts and an analysis of causes, not investment advice.

Market Overview

Bitcoin spent Thursday, 29th October, below the previous day's level. According to Fortune data at 8:45 AM ET, BTC was priced at $80,036.60, which was 1.62% or $1,323 lower than on the morning of 28th October ($81,359.62). Coin Gabbar's morning data on 29th October (4:15 AM UTC) recorded $79,830.39 (-1.7% over 24 hours), while The Motley Fool / Yahoo Finance's end-of-day summary showed $80,297.76 (-1.19%). The German financial portal ad-hoc-news mentioned a temporarily higher level of $81,079 at 6:23 PM Berlin time. These differences reflect intraday fluctuations, not contradictions: during the day, BTC repeatedly tested the $80,000 threshold. According to ad-hoc-news, BTC's 24-hour high was $81,364 and its low was $79,702, before evening events pushed the price even lower (see section on security incidents).

Ethereum showed a slightly sharper decline than Bitcoin. According to Fortune data at 8:45 AM ET, ETH was priced at $2,320.82 - 1.79% or $42.46 less than on 28th October ($2,363.28). Crypto.news recorded around $2,318 (-2.12%), with a temporary drop to $2,293.44 before recovering above $2,300. Year-to-date, ETH's performance remained deeply negative: according to Fortune data, a year ago Ethereum was priced at $3,903.96, meaning approximately -40.55% year-on-year, while month-on-month, the decline was approximately -13.27%.

In the altcoin segment, the decline was widespread. According to The Motley Fool / Yahoo Finance data (CoinGecko, 8:16 PM UTC on 29th October), Solana (SOL) traded around $98.97 (-3.26%), XRP around $1.27 (-4.6%), and BNB around $738.63 (-2.1%), before evening events pushed BNB even lower. A notable exception was the Hyperliquid token (HYPE), which showed approximately +15.2% to $93.45 in this summary. According to Coin Gabbar data, Bitcoin dominance was 57.8%, the total stablecoin capitalisation was $295 billion (-0.4%), and the total value locked (TVL) in decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols fell by 3.4% to $73.89 billion. The Fear & Greed Index was 51 points (neutral zone) compared to 68 points a week ago and 73 points a month ago, indicating a cooling of sentiment throughout October.

What Influenced the Market

The day's macro background was twofold: on one hand, the Fed's decision and economic data, on the other, stock market caution. On Wednesday, 28th October, the Fed, according to Nexo's summary, maintained the base rate within the 3.75-4.00% range with a 10-2 vote; two voters (Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack) supported a 25 basis point rate hike. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh refrained from indicating future policy. KuCoin's daily report on 29th October independently confirmed the rate maintenance in the 3.75-4.00% range with two voters for a hike. According to Nexo, the market assigned approximately an 80% probability to a rate hike at the next meeting on 9th December. Such a "hawkish pause" typically limits capital inflows into risk assets by maintaining high real interest rates.

Economic data was relatively strong. According to Nexo, US Q3 GDP growth (annualised) was 3.4% against a forecast of 3.2%, initial jobless claims were 194,000 (below the expected 198,000), and the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - core PCE - rose by 0.3% month-on-month in September, in line with forecasts. The US Dollar Index (DXY) remained stable around 102.2 points, US two-year bond yields fell by 3.8 basis points to 4.70%, while ten-year yields rose by 5 points to 5.04%. The European Central Bank, according to Nexo, maintained the deposit rate at 2.50%.

Stock market caution intensified pressure on crypto. According to The Motley Fool's summary, weakness in tech stocks on Thursday affected broader market sentiment against the backdrop of tech giants' quarterly results. Nexo noted that in pre-market trading, Nasdaq-100 futures were -1.0%, S&P 500 -0.3%, and Dow +0.5%; Alphabet shares fell by approximately 10%, while Microsoft rose by more than 3%. The link to crypto is traceable: according to Nexo, Bitcoin's 30-day correlation with the Nasdaq-100 was 0.64, so tech stock volatility also transferred to digital assets.

The institutional flow picture was contradictory. According to ad-hoc-news (referencing SoSoValue and TradingView), US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted $137.33 million net on 28th October - the third consecutive inflow session since 26th October - of which BlackRock IBIT accounted for $136.01 million and Bitwise BITB for $1.32 million. Total ETF net assets reached $104.88 billion. In contrast, Ethereum ETFs continued to experience outflows: according to crypto.news (SoSoValue), ETH funds lost $88.58 million, $60.22 million, and $21.41 million respectively from 26th-28th October (a total of approximately $170 million), and according to Nexo, outflows occurred on 17 of 20 trading days in October (approximately $1.35 billion), with ETH losing approximately 13.6% during the month. During the day (before the evening incident), crypto futures liquidations were moderate - according to CoinDesk data cited by The Motley Fool, approximately $356 million over 24 hours, of which about $205 million were long positions (betting on price increases).

Exchange and Industry Events

The main event of the day unfolded in the evening. Starting around 8:20 PM UTC, several on-chain analytics sources and major industry media reported suspicious outflows from Binance's hot wallets. According to The Block's report (published 9:48 PM UTC on 29th October), security firm Blockaid investigated approximately $3.3 billion in suspicious outflows from Binance's hot wallets across the Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche networks, while Coinbase Senior Director Conor Grogan estimated the total volume to be up to $5.8 billion. Binance had not publicly confirmed a hack at that time; the exchange's co-founder Yi He wrote on platform X that the team "is aware of reports of a potential security issue and is actively investigating it." Former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) indicated that he no longer managed Binance.com but, as a shareholder, expected all user funds to be fully covered.

The incident directly impacted prices. According to FinanceFeeds, shortly after 9:15 PM UTC, Bitcoin traded around $79,100 (-2.7% over 24 hours), Ethereum fell by 3.9% to approximately $2,270, and Binance's native token BNB - by 5.4% to approximately $716 (according to cryptoticker, a temporary low was $692.32, and BTC at one point dropped to approximately $78,763). According to PANews and CoinGlass data, cited by both sources, approximately $628-629 million in leveraged positions were liquidated in the market within one hour of the outflow, almost all of which (around $607 million) were long positions. Several industry participants reacted quickly: according to crypto.news, the Arbitrum Security Council moved 74.56 million ARB and 8,425 ETH to a restricted wallet, while the lending protocol Aave, according to on-chain data, froze relevant markets to prevent the attacker from borrowing.

Other industry events were structural in nature and mainly related to the previous day. According to KuCoin's daily report on 29th October (covering events of 28th October), the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against the state of Utah in connection with Kalshi, the DTCC depository launched a tokenisation service, and the Pump.fun platform integrated Hyperliquid perpetual futures. These events are noted as dated context, not direct causes of 29th October's price movements.

Security Incidents

The Binance incident should be viewed carefully, as it was still developing on the evening of 29th October, and some claims were based on on-chain analysis rather than official confirmation from the exchange. According to FinanceFeeds and crypto.news's reconstruction (referencing Blockaid and Etherscan data), the attack used so-called EIP-7702 delegation: around 8:20:59 PM UTC, a wallet labelled "Binance 14" was "delegated" to an external, unverified smart contract, and at 8:24 PM UTC, approximately 167,464 ETH, over 1.6 billion USDT, and dozens of other tokens were moved in a single transaction (worth approximately $2.5 billion). At 8:41 PM UTC, 780 million USDC flowed out of another wallet, and the draining continued until approximately 9:04 PM UTC. The total loss estimate varied significantly between sources - from Blockaid's approximately $3.3 billion and tracking tools indicating up to $3.55 billion across six blockchains, to as much as $5.5-6.3 billion - so the precise amount was not confirmed on the evening of 29th October.

Some of the funds were successfully frozen. According to The Block and crypto.news, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino reported freezing over 1.567 billion USDT, and Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire - over 800 million USDC; the total frozen amount, according to various sources, ranged from approximately $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion. A Ripple representative indicated that work was underway to freeze RLUSD. A contradiction in sources should be highlighted: Blockaid's public report mentioned the use of "stolen keys," while Binance later stated that it had found no evidence of a leaked wallet private key.

As clear dated context, we add Binance's morning announcement on 30th October, reported by crypto.news (published 4:57 AM UTC on 30th October). According to this report, Binance's initial investigation suggests the incident may be related to a compromised DevOps engineer's computer used to submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions; the exchange stated that it had found no evidence of wallet private key leaks, that deposits were unaffected and operating normally, that withdrawals were planned to resume within the next 48 hours, and that losses would be covered by SAFU and company funds. Binance promised to publish a detailed analysis of the events. As of the preparation of this report, an independently confirmed final loss amount and full timeline of events were not yet available.

Context and Outlook

In a broader context, the decline on 29th October fits into October's cooling trend. The drop in the Fear & Greed Index from 73 (a month ago) to 51 points, persistent Ethereum ETF outflows, and weak ETH monthly performance (approximately -13.6%, according to Nexo) indicate that institutional demand in October was uneven and primarily concentrated in Bitcoin ETF products, of which, according to CryptoSlate, BlackRock IBIT attracted approximately 96.3% of all US spot Bitcoin ETF inflows between 3rd August and 26th October.

In the near term, market attention is likely to focus on several factors. Firstly, on the resolution of the Binance incident - the exchange's promised detailed analysis, the resumption of withdrawals, and whether the compromised internal access point version will be confirmed; this event, if the estimated volume is confirmed, would be one of the largest exchange security incidents in industry history, and its impact on trust in centralised exchanges will need to be monitored over several days. Secondly, on tech giants' quarterly results and their impact on the stock market, given Bitcoin's high correlation with the Nasdaq-100. Thirdly, on the Bank of Japan's decision on 30th October (Nexo expects rates to be maintained at 1.25%) and the Fed's 9th December meeting. Several observers note that after a sharp, partly liquidation-driven decline, the market may be sensitive to both further corrections and a rapid recovery, depending on how the Binance situation develops. This article is an informational overview and should not be considered investment advice; always conduct your own research before making decisions.

Sources

• Fortune - "Current price of Bitcoin for October 29, 2026" (29.10.2026): https://fortune.com/article/price-of-bitcoin-10-29-2026/
• Fortune - "Current price of Ethereum for October 29, 2026" (29.10.2026): https://fortune.com/article/price-of-ethereum-10-29-2026/
• The Motley Fool - "Crypto Market Today, Oct. 29: Bitcoin Slides Below $80K as Big Tech Earnings Uncertainty and Market Volatility Intensify" (29.10.2026): https://www.fool.com/coverage/stock-market-today/2026/10/29/crypto-market-today-oct-29-bitcoin-slides-below-usd80k-as-big-tech-earnings-uncertainty-and-market-volatility-intensify/
• Yahoo Finance (The Motley Fool) - "Crypto Market Today, Oct. 29" (29.10.2026): https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/crypto-market-today-oct-29-214002134.html
• Coin Gabbar - "Crypto News October 29: Market Falls 1.3% Amid PCE and Fed Data" (29.10.2026): https://www.coingabbar.com/en/crypto-news-bitcoin-ethereum-price-today-fed-rate-pce-inflation