Live updates: Bitcoin holds above $81,000 as oil prices hit six-month high

Gold fell below $4,000 an ounce for the first time since July, trading around $3,990, roughly 30% below its January all-time high of $5,600. Silver has dropped more than 2% over the past 24 hours to around $53.40 an ounce, leaving it 56% below its January record high.

The University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment edged down to 48.0 in October from 48.1 a month earlier. That’s up, though, from the preliminary reading of 46.3 two weeks ago.

The Index of Consumer Expectations rose to 48.8 from 46.3.

One-year inflation expectations rose to 4.7% from 4.6%, but were flat from the 4.7% preliminary read.

Longer-run inflation expectations rose to 3.5% from 3.4%, also in line with the preliminary read.

Even with yesterday’s ugly action included, bitcoin BTC$84,459.46 has gained about 39% over the nearly four months since it sat just below $59,000 on July 1.

One trader crunched the numbers. Since July 1, there have been 2,724 hourly candles, and the 15 strongest candles — just 0.55% — produced enough gains for that entire 39% advance.

Removing the 20 strongest hours over the last four months, and bitcoin would have actually dropped 6.8%.

“This is exactly why going fully cash and waiting for the ‘perfect entry’ is so dangerous,” the trader concluded. “Bitcoin could spend weeks doing absolutely nothing and deliver the entire rally while you are waiting to buy lower.”

The U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETF suffered $635 million in outflows during yesterday’s panicky action, according to Farside Investors. That’s the largest daily outflow since June 25.

While the contrarian take might be, “fantastic, the leveraged, fast-money types were flushed out, and now we’re poised to move higher,” history suggests otherwise.

According to Farside, bitcoin has tended to perform poorly in the days and weeks following outsized outflows. For instances of outflows greater than $300 million (there have been 22 such days prior to yesterday), bitcoin, on average, was significantly lower 7, 30, and 90 days later.

The caveat, of course, is that history is quite limited, given the ETFs have been around for less than three years, and is also likely skewed by the bear market begun in October 2025.

Bitcoin dipped to about $81,000 late Thursday and has since spent the day boxed in a range of less than $1,000, trading near $81,500 early Friday. After a week of $3,000 swings, it’s the calmest stretch bitcoin has had in days.

It’s down 0.4% over 24 hours and still sits below $82,500, the support it lost on Thursday.

Altcoins were mixed. BNB was the standout, up nearly 2% to about $745, and DOGE added about 1%. XMR gave back part of Thursday’s jump, falling 7% to about $607, and ZEC lost nearly 4% to about $1,200. HYPE, XRP, ether and SOL slipped about 1% or less, with ether just under $2,400, according to CoinDesk data.

Stocks found their footing too. Nasdaq 100 futures were little changed after the index’s worst day since June, and an ETF tracking chipmakers edged higher before the open. Meta kept falling, while SpaceX climbed on reports that it plans to become a wireless carrier.

Oil is the worry. Brent crude touched its highest level since early May, which complicates the inflation outlook heading into the Fed’s Oct. 27–28 meeting. Treasuries gave back some of Thursday’s haven rally, which had pushed the 10-year yield down by the most in more than a year. Gold and the dollar were flat.