Bitcoin recovered above $82,000 on Friday after a Thursday selloff pushed it below $80,000 for the first time in more than a month. By mid-session, BTC was trading around $82,295 to $82,644, up between 1.28% and 1% depending on the source, while major altcoins also bounced: Ethereum rose 4.17% to $2,473.17, Solana added 3.02%, XRP gained 2.03%, and Zcash led the top-15 pack with a 10.29% jump to roughly $1,222.
Thursday's decline triggered heavy liquidations. CoinGlass data showed $948 million in liquidations, with 90.6% of them long positions, meaning leveraged traders betting on higher prices were forced out as the market moved against them. The rebound, however, left the longer-term trend intact but with near-term resistance still overhead.
Technical analysts have highlighted $81,603 as a key resistance-turned-support level derived from a major low-to-high range. Thursday's wick to $79,711 briefly undercut that level and the 50-day exponential moving average, which sits at $80,407. The 200-day EMA is lower at $75,759, about 8% below the current spot price, keeping the longer-term trend in bullish territory. Momentum indicators were mixed: the Average Directional Index stood at 25.5, barely above the 25 threshold confirming a trend, with sellers leading buyers on the directional indicators. The Relative Strength Index read 48.9, slightly favoring sellers in neutral territory.
On prediction platform Myriad, built by Decrypt's parent company Dastan, traders currently assign only a 31% chance that Bitcoin reaches $87,500 in October, down from 45% on Tuesday. A separate market prices a 43% chance BTC falls to $77,500. The bullish scenario requires buyers to defend $81,603 and force a daily close above $84,246, opening a path toward $85,301 and $86,644. The bearish scenario would begin with a daily close below $81,603, exposing $80,407 and $80,365, then $78,003 and the $75,759-to-$75,093 zone where the 200-day EMA meets the 50% retracement.
The session also carried a significant technology narrative. Google Quantum AI published a paper in Science showing its Willow chip cut a critical class of quantum errors about 40-fold, using a filtering approach that discards 92% of rough quantum states and keeps the survivors at 99.99% fidelity. This is not yet enough to break RSA-2048, which requires error rates around one in 10 billion, roughly a million times cleaner than Google's result. Still, the pace is notable: estimates for cracking RSA-2048 have fallen from 20 million noisy qubits in 2019 to under 1 million by 2025, and a March 2026 Google whitepaper placed Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography at under 500,000 physical qubits; Willow currently has 105.
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake's warning last week focused not on quantum computers but on AI-driven mathematics potentially breaking elliptic curves on ordinary hardware in "months not years." He advised large holders to move funds to fresh addresses that have never signed transactions, since signing exposes the public key. The industry is already responding: Coinbase has argued that migration must start now, Sui is running quantum-safe transactions on a test network, and Ethereum, Zcash and Near have plans for quantum resistance.
Around the broader market, the corporate and macro backdrop remained active. MSCI finalized new index rules that could put Strategy at risk of removal from its global indexes, with the final affected list due November 11. The White House lost its crypto lead after adviser Patrick Witt announced a private-sector move. Chainalysis reported the United States became a net importer of bitcoin for the first time since 2022, driven by institutional buying. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argued bitcoin wins whether the AI trade booms or busts. Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $5 million in net inflows on Thursday, while Ethereum ETFs saw $60 million in outflows. Mastercard launched its Global Money Platform built on BVNK, Ledger unveiled its Atom signer device, and Binance US is reportedly trying to raise up to $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
