Copyright CoinDesk
Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin Holds $100K as Altcoins Extend Losses, AI Tokens Defy Trend Bitcoin’s slide to $100,600 caps another week of losses due to renewed Fed caution. Ether and most altcoins are struggling, though AI-linked tokens are seeing outsized gains. Nov 7, 2025, 11:30 a.m. What to know : The crypto market fall again on Friday as a stronger dollar and hawkish Federal Reserve tone fueled a 30-day, 18% decline in BTC. Bitcoin futures open interest fell to $24.9 billion as traders deleveraged, though options activity leaned bullish, with calls dominating by 64%-35%. FET and NEAR jumped over 20% in 24 hours as traders rotated into high-volume, narrative-driven plays despite weakness elsewhere. The crypto market compounded a negative week with a continued drawdown on Friday. Bitcoin BTC$ 100,185.09 dropped to $100,600 and ether ETH$ 3,240.94 is languishing as $3,270. The move appears to be in line with the wider crypto market trend of late, which has seen BTC lose 18% of its value over the past 30 days. Both the CoinDesk 5 Index (CD5) of the largest, most active tokens and the broader CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) have lost about 3% in the past 24 hours. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newslettersBy signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. The fallout can still be attributed to comments out of the Federal Reserve earlier in the week that suggested a potential cooling of the rate-cutting cycle, causing a rise in the U.S. dollar and a slump in risk assets. The altcoin market, with the exception of AI tokens, is performing worse than bitcoin, with the "altcoin season" index at 22/100, its lowest in more than 90 days. Derivatives positioning By Saksham Diwan The BTC futures market continues to reflect caution and low conviction. Open interest (OI) is showing a slow but steady downward trend, settling at $24.91 billion. That's down from $26 billion last week, an indication that traders are reducing leverage. The three-month annualized basis is low at 3%-4% and funding rates are under 10% annualized across major exchanges. The deleveraging and suppressed derivatives metrics together reinforce a general environment of low profitability and a lack of strong directional commitment from the futures side. The BTC options market, in contrast, is displaying mixed but strongly bullish signals. Despite near-term backwardation in the implied volatility (IV) term structure, indicating short-term volatility, the trading bias is decisively upside. This is confirmed by the 24-hour put/call volume leaning 64%-35% in favor of calls and the one-week 25-delta skew holding at 10%, which signifies traders are paying a clear premium for upside exposure in the very near term. Bitcoin's price drop saw $601 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with 65% of losses borne by longs, confirming the impact of forced selling. Crucially, with the current BTC price around $101,000, the psychological $100,000 level is now fortified by multiple $30 million long liquidation walls, positioning it as a strong support level likely to be aggressively defended by the market. Token talk By Oliver Knight The altcoin market faced more downside pressure on Friday, led by a 5% drop in XRP$ 2,1800 and a 3.5% decline for ether ETH$ 3240,94. Both tokens are now approaching critical levels of support that provided short term relief on Nov. 4. A break below these levels would signal continuation to the downside. CoinMarketCap's "altcoin season" index is at 22/100, its lowest in more than 90 days, as traders move out of tokens lacking liquidity ahead of a potential sell-off. Last month's leverage-inspired drawdown presented several vulnerabilities with altcoin order books, notably how a lack of resting limit orders can cause dramatic spikes when volatility rises, which subsequently prompts a wave of liquidations on derivatives exchanges. Another metric that may worry bulls is that the average relative strength index (RSI) indicator is at 49.52/100, no longer oversold as it was earlier this week. This means that the market is now neutral and is no longer likely to bounce. However, the altcoin market is clinging on to one glimmer of hope moving into the weekend: The AI sector is booming. FET is up by 23% over the past 24 hours and NEAR is narrowly behind with a 22% gain. Volume profiles for both tokens suggests retail participation, with significant flows on Binance and Kucoin. Di più per voi Inside Zcash: Encrypted Money at Planetary Scale Di CoinDesk Research 3 nov 2025 Commissioned byGen Zcash A deep dive into Zcash's zero-knowledge architecture, shielded transaction growth, and its path to becoming encrypted Bitcoin at scale. Cosa sapere : In 2025, Zcash evolved from niche privacy tech into a functioning encrypted-money network: Shielded adoption surged, with 20–25% of circulating ZEC now held in encrypted addresses and 30% of transactions involving the shielded pool. The Zashi wallet made shielded transfers the default, pushing privacy from optional to standard practice. Project Tachyon, led by Sean Bowe, aims to boost throughput to thousands of private transactions per second. Zcash surpassed Monero in market share, becoming the largest privacy-focused cryptocurrency by capitalization.
