Bitcoin steady near $81,300 as altcoins slide and quantum alliance forms

Bitcoin drifted slightly lower into the weekend, trading at $81,311 in CoinGecko's evening snapshot, down 0.51% over 24 hours. The headlines offered no single price catalyst, but altcoins kept losing ground, while the industry answered this week's quantum worries by launching a standards alliance.

Bitcoin holds a narrow range

Bitcoin moved between $80,823 and $81,655 over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. That is a tight band of less than $1,000. Over seven days the coin is down 2.01%. The price is little changed from our midday report, when it stood near $81,400. Spot volume over 24 hours was $14.4 billion. See the BTC/USD chart.

Ether and the majors

Ether slipped 1.3% to $2,392.43 and is down 4.51% on the week, after trading between $2,363.56 and $2,438.10. Every major in our list fell, and most fell harder than bitcoin.

Cardano remains the weakest large coin, down 13.28% in a week. XRP and Dogecoin are each down about 8%. Track Cardano on the ADA/USDT chart.

Breadth and sentiment

Total crypto market value stands at $2.74 trillion. CoinGecko shows a 3.38% decline over 24 hours, a steeper drop than any of the majors above. Bitcoin dominance is 59.5% and Ether's share is 10.6%.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index reads 55, still labelled "Greed", down from 63 on Friday. The gauge has swung through the week: 69 on Oct. 12, 57 on Oct. 13, 62 on Oct. 14 and a neutral 53 on Oct. 15. Today's reading sits below the 64 recorded on Oct. 10.

What drove the news

Quantum alliance. A nine-member group of crypto firms has launched a quantum alliance, Decrypt reports. Modelled on the Internet Engineering Task Force, it aims to set open standards for testing quantum-resistance claims. Decrypt says 6 million bitcoin sit exposed and that forecasts place the first practical attack in the late 2020s. The move follows Google's Willow chip advance, which we covered earlier today.

Banks and tokenization. Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley see tokenization as a growth opportunity rather than a threat, according to CoinDesk. Separately, CoinDesk reports that research firm Citrini sees a tokenization boom but says the open question is who captures the revenue. Polygon CEO Marc Boiron told CoinDesk the Coinme acquisition gives Polygon an entry into payments.

Politics. A Fairshake affiliate disclosed roughly $7 million more in ads against Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, taking its total past $46 million, Decrypt reports.

Other items. A Fidelity report says Solana has had no reported mainnet outages in two years but flags concentration in stake, hosting and client software, Cointelegraph reports. Cointelegraph also reports that Bitget will discontinue services for some users, saying funds are safe. A BIS working paper found higher US bank deposit rates predicted slower stablecoin growth, per CoinDesk.

On the macro side, our sister site covered how AI debt fears pushed Treasury yields lower and ended the dollar's four-week winning streak.

What to watch next

• MSCI rules: MSCI will treat "non-operating companies" as ineligible from Nov. 30, which could affect Strategy, Decrypt reports.
• Digital euro: ECB President Christine Lagarde said the digital euro is imminent, according to Cointelegraph.
• Quantum standards: Any testing framework from the new alliance.
• Ohio Senate race: Further PAC spending disclosures in the Brown contest.