Bitcoin (BTC) starts a key week of October with the fate of the bull market at stake. What comes next?
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Bitcoin stages a solid rebound from its biggest-ever liquidation cascade, reaching a high of $116,000 so far.
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Traders are divided over where the market will head from here; there are even doubts that the bull market will ever return.
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A giant reset in leverage offers potential relief for bulls, but shorts remain a concern.
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US inflation data continues to be delayed due to the government shutdown, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell due to speak.
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The crypto “debasement trade” is in focus as gold hits new all-time highs.
“Game over” as Bitcoin, crypto rebound
Bitcoin managed to return to $116,000 to start the week as weekly close volatility came in right on cue.
That represented a 5.7% rebound versus Friday’s lows of $109,700 that followed the largest liquidity wipe-out in crypto market history, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirmed.
A single tariff announcement as part of the US-China trade war was all it took to create unprecedented panic.
Even stocks and gold joined the mayhem, but by Monday, the latter had seen new all-time highs of $4,078 per ounce.
“If you include the after hours drop in futures, the S&P 500 is up +120 points at the open,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter noted in ongoing coverage on X.
“This has effectively erased 50% of the decline seen late-last week. Now, we await more guidance from the Trump Admin.”
Crypto, in turn, added more than half a billion dollars to its market cap after Friday’s lows. Given that some short traders had timed the market a little too well, co-founder Adam Kobeissi described the comeback as “game over.”
“This was one of the largest and fastest wealth transfers in crypto history,” he said.
US President Donald Trump, whose message on Truth Social started the rout, aided the recovery in the same way.
“Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” he wrote on Sunday.
As a result of the past days’ events, one BTC price chart stands out: volatility. As noted by crypto quant analyst Frank A. Fetter, whose X account is named after a famous economist, implied volatility is now at its highest levels since April, which was the height of the tariffs debacle.
“BTC implied volatility just spiked: the market is now pricing in larger potential moves ahead. Finally,” he told X followers.
Fetter appeared to refer to the lackluster nature of what should be the climax year of Bitcoin’s latest bull market. As Cointelegraph reported, concerns are mounting that BTC/USD may not repeat history with a blow-off top in Q4.
Bitcoin bull market hinges on key trendline
Traders face a dilemma this week: Is the worst over, or just the start of a major BTC price correction?
For trader Roman, who has long been suspicious of the bull market’s strength, the choice is clearly the latter.
“Last week’s flash crash perfectly bounced off our diagonal uptrend support from August 2024 at 40k,” he wrote alongside a chart on X.
“I’m looking for at least a retest of 108 but as many of you know, HTF has bearish indications. Will check 1D when we get an intra support retest at 107-108.”
Roman added that a break below the diagonal trend line “would ‘officially’ confirm a new macro downtrend and likely confirm the bear market.”
More hopeful market takes came from trader Skew, who observed that “large players” were entering as the BTC price retook $115,000.
$BTC
Looks like $115K was a key trigger for some large players too (likely a firm) pic.twitter.com/ta9w5iafia— Skew Δ (@52kskew) October 12, 2025
“Looks pretty alright as long as price doesn’t close below $112K on 1D & next 1W,” he said about the daily and weekly charts, putting the bulls’ key challenge at $120,000.
Others used exchange order-book liquidity to identify key price levels going forward.
“Respect the liquidation hot spots,” trader SuperBro told X followers on the day.
“Tradfi may need a chance to retest the lows, and there is liquidity from 108.5 to 113 with concentration near the mid 111’s. The hot spot overhead is from 123-128 with concentration around the $126K ATH.”
Analyst: “Stay cautious” after crypto liquidity flush
The shock of last week’s liquidity cascade has delivered a crypto market reset of record proportions.
The latest market data from onchain analytics platform Glassnode revealed that funding rates across derivatives exchanges collapsed to bear-market lows.
“Funding rates across the crypto market have plunged to their lowest levels since the depths of the 2022 bear market,” it told X followers Sunday.
“This marks one of the most severe…
cointelegraph.com