Buyers Break $85,000 Sell Wall, Bitcoin Eyes $100,000

On Oct. 2 buyers pushed through a cluster of sell orders around $85,000, allowing Bitcoin to reach an intraday high near $87,000. Data from Glassnode showed some orders were filled and the remainder withdrawn, leaving fewer visible asks immediately above the market.

CryptoQuant’s Accumulation Trend has begun to contract, a pattern that appeared before two price advances in March and April 2025. CryptoQuant notes the historical sample is small. The indicator tracks buying and selling across holder groups and highlights changes in whether supply is being absorbed or distributed.

Bitwise’s analysis shows Bitcoin has reclaimed several cost-basis levels it monitors: a short-term holder cost basis near $73,000, a market mean around $77,000, and an estimated average cost for spot ETF investors near $83,000. Bitcoin also moved past Bitwise’s $85,000 short-term-holder realized-price band into a different segment of the holder distribution.

On-chain cohort data add potential supply pressure as price approaches higher holder cost bases. A CryptoQuant estimate places the average cost for holders who bought 18 to 24 months ago near $88,350, while the six-to-12-month cohort sits near $89,200. As price nears those levels, holders with unrealized losses face decisions about selling or holding.

Bitwise’s valuation bands put the next short-term reference around $90,000 (about 1.5 standard deviations above recent realized price) and a two-standard-deviation band near $95,000. In Bitwise’s historical sample, Bitcoin traded above those thresholds on roughly 3.8% and 1.7% of days. A separate Fibonacci framework used by the firm marks levels near $92,000 and $100,000.

Options positioning concentrates in the same area. Deribit data show roughly $2.1 billion of call exposure at the $90,000 strike, $2.4 billion at $95,000 and $1.8 billion at $100,000. The impact of those positions on spot prices depends on expirations and how dealers hedge.

Derivatives activity and leverage have begun to rebuild after a September pullback. CoinGlass data show Bitcoin open interest fell to about $52 billion at the end of September and rose to roughly $56.2 billion in the first two days of October, an increase that coincided with Bitcoin’s move from about $83,500 to above $87,000. Higher funding rates raise the cost of holding long positions and increase the risk of liquidations if the rally reverses.

U.S. payrolls for September rose by 29,000, below the roughly 90,000 economists had expected, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%. The report reduced the implied probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike in October to below 20%, which pushed Treasury yields lower and supported U.S. equities.

Bitwise’s framework identifies $90,000 to $100,000 as the next region where several technical and on-chain reference points converge. The firm places the average ETF investor cost basis near $83,000 as an important downside reference if prices reverse.