October 30: a Binance hack takes bitcoin 6.8% off its high, into September’s support

01What happened overnight

Price was already sliding before the news: from the day’s high of $81,888 at 16:05 UTC it had eased 1.9% to $80,302 by 20:20. At 20:24, on-chain trackers saw the first large transfer out of a Binance hot wallet, about $2.8 billion in ether and tokens. By 20:45 bitcoin was at $78,200, down 2.6% in 25 minutes.

A bounce to $79,546 at 21:35 did not last. Shortly after midnight Binance suspended deposits and withdrawals and its co-founder Yi He said the exchange would cover all losses. Price kept falling to $76,320 at 02:05, when the night’s selling stopped. At 02:30 Binance put the damage at about $6.3 billion, with about $3 billion frozen. Those figures are the exchange’s and trackers’ early estimates, as reported, and may change.

Leverage took the brunt. CoinGlass counted $1.55 billion of liquidations in 24 hours, $1.34 billion of them longs. Funding stayed positive on all three venues the site tracks, 0.0037% per 8 hours on average, a little below the week’s 0.0048%. Longs were cut, but shorts have not piled in.

02Where price landed

The October 29 close, $77,793, was the lowest since September 17, and the overnight low the lowest since September 18. Last week’s box, $79.1k to $81.9k, is broken: the last note named a daily close outside it as the first thing that would change the read.

The low landed inside the daily support zone that note listed, $74.7k to $76.5k, the September 15 and 16 lows where the last rally began. Price is back inside the accumulate band, 3.5% below its top edge of $80.7k and 1.16× the 200-week moving average of $67.3k. MVRV Z is 0.78, still in the Fair range.

03The levels either side

The nearest level above is on 5-minute bars: $78.6k, 0.9% up, where this morning’s bounce stalled at $78,644. The hourly chart has resistance at $79.0k (a zone from $78.5k to $79.3k), right under the old box floor, then $79.6k. On daily bars the whole old box, $79.7k to $82.6k, is now one resistance zone centred at $81.3k. Below, hourly support sits at $77.6k, 0.4% under price, and at $76.3k, the zone the overnight low made ($76.0k to $76.5k). Then the daily zone at $75.6k, and the long-term weekly support at $71.8k (a zone from $69.0k to $74.7k).

A daily close back above $79.1k would put price back in the old box; one below $74.7k would leave September’s support behind.

04What the cone allows

The night woke volatility up, but only a little. 30-day realized volatility is 28.5%, still lower than on 92% of days in the last five years, and the options market’s DVOL reads 37.3, up from 36.0 yesterday and near the bottom of its one-year range.

The ensemble reads 40.2% for the month ahead, between EWMA at 31.7% and GARCH at 52.3%. That gives a 24-hour 80% range of $76.1k to $79.8k and a 7-day range of $72.8k to $83.4k.

Scoring yesterday: issue 2’s 24-hour 80% range was $78.3k to $81.7k. With half an hour left, price is 0.5% below it, and the overnight low went under its 95% floor of $77.2k too. Unless the next 30 minutes bring that 0.5% back, it is a miss. Its 7-day call, $75.1k to $85.2k, still holds; the low stayed $1.2k above its floor, and the November 5 close scores it.

05The call

The forecast’s 80% range for November 6 is $72,815 to $83,391, and its 95% range is $70,083 to $86,642. The November 6 close scores it, here and on the notes page.

None of this is a trade signal. It describes where price sits and the range the models allow.

Correction, October 31: the cycle clock at issue read 39 days until the low window. That day’s halving estimate used an unusually slow average block time; on a normal estimate the window is open, with 76 days left. Nothing else in this note used it.