Invest2 publishers2 min readPublished
Bitcoin rallies toward $87,000 with ETF inflows at a tenth of their September peak
US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $102.7 million on October 1, a tenth of September 21's $999 million, as Bitcoin neared $87,000. That leaves the Fed's October 27-28 meeting, more than the seasonal record, to decide whether fund buyers return in size.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Buyers broke through a band of sell orders near $85,000 and took Bitcoin to $86,857 on Friday, its highest price since September 23.
- Short positions made up $122 million of the $210 million liquidated across crypto markets over 24 hours.
- The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate to a 3.75% to 4% range on September 16, its first increase since 2023.
- A softer August core PCE reading, up 3% from a year earlier, cut the odds of another Fed hike in October from about 71% to below 50%.
- A year earlier, the October 10, 2025 crash wiped out about $19 billion of positions, according to CoinShares, and ended seven straight years of October gains.
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Why it matters
- contradiction Netted against the $148.7 million that left the funds on September 30, the October 1 return to inflows still left them about $46 million lighter over the two days.
- exposure Bitcoin is trading around $86,000, the aggregate breakeven for US spot ETF investors, so a slide back through the old sell wall would put the average fund holder at a loss.
- constraint CoinGlass shows potential liquidations clustered above $87,300, so the next leg up could again be forced buying that stops once those shorts are closed out.
BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust took in $195 million on October 1 by itself, according to Farside Investors [10]. The funds' combined net was $102.7 million [1], so the other US spot funds lost about $92.3 million between them that day [3]. Holders outside the largest fund were net sellers into the bounce [3]. Against $109.3 billion of combined net assets, per SoSoValue [9], the day's net inflow came to about 0.09% of the pool [2].
The asks that capped the range were sizable. Earlier in the week Cointelegraph reported more than $30 million of sell orders stacked around $85,700 [24]. After buyers cleared the band, Glassnode wrote that the remaining sell orders "seem to have been removed" [27]. "With reduced ask liquidity above, this should allow price to move up faster," it wrote on X [11].
Glassnode also set its own bar for calling the move a trend: a sustained breakout with higher trading volume and renewed ETF inflows [13]. "A return to inflows near that pace would be the clearest sign of renewed ETF demand," it wrote of the late-September peak [14].
The seasonal case rests on history. Cryptopolitan cites a median fourth-quarter Bitcoin return of 26.59% since 2013 [17], yet even at Friday's high the price was about 31% below the $126,080 record set on October 6, 2025, four days before the crash [23][5]. If the Fed holds at the end of the month, fund buyers get a reason to come back at something near September's pace, and a squeeze can turn into a trend. If it hikes again, with the 10-year Treasury yield already at 5.17% on September 25 [15], the question is whether ETF holders keep a recovery that is only weeks old. Bloomberg's James Seyffart wrote on X on September 21 that the average Bitcoin ETF holder was back above water for the first time since January [16].
I think the Fed meeting will decide more of October than the calendar will. The flow data so far describe a squeeze that fund money has yet to back. The case against that view is the third quarter, which Cryptopolitan reported was the strongest of 2026 for the funds, with $6.49 billion of inflows after $4.51 billion of outflows in the second [21]. On that reading, one thin day after a strong September is noise. The view is wrong if daily inflows climb back toward the September peak before the Fed meets, with no rate decision to prompt them.
What to watch
- The Fed's October 27-28 decision, and whether hike odds keep falling as more inflation data arrive before it.
- Daily flows at funds other than IBIT: net buying there would mean demand is broader than one issuer's clients.
- Trading volume on the next push above Friday's high, the second half of Glassnode's confirmation test.