Bitcoin 2026-10-13 daily brief — AI stance: bearish

Flat. The open-interest-weighted perpetual funding across exchanges annualizes to 0.83 percent, and the single major venue to 2.23 percent; both sit far under the roughly 11 percent per year that the exchange-default 0.01 percent per 8 hours implies as neutral. Over the last 14 days the venue rate ranged from -0.0019 to +0.0085 percent per 8 hours, roughly -2 to +9 percent annualized, never above baseline. The single venue runs about 1.4 percentage points annualized hotter than the all-venue aggregate, so what little long bias exists is concentrated there, but neither figure is crowded, stretched or extreme. Perp longs are not paying to hold; the leverage flush of Oct 7 and 8 already cleared them.

Deleveraged and defensive. Market-wide futures open interest is 52.28 billion dollars, down 6.1 percent from the 55.67 billion peak on Oct 6, while price fell about 3 percent over the same span, so the decline is position reduction, not just mark-to-market. The single venue holds 6.15 billion, roughly flat over 14 days. Options open interest is 37.64 billion with 3.63 billion traded, and the 30-day put skew at the 87th rolling percentile plus the 7-day skew at the 83rd says that book is tilted to downside protection. ATM 30-day IV of 35.6 percent (61st 90-day percentile, down 0.8 points in five days) with a positive 30-to-90-day slope and a positive 7-to-30-day slope says no near-term event premium is being charged. Net: light leverage, hedged downside, no crowd to squeeze in either direction.

Long-heavy and already partly flushed. Oct 7 and 8 produced 129.9 million and 236.0 million dollars of long liquidations at the single venue against 9.8 million and 23.4 million short, coinciding with the -2.68 percent day and the drop to 81,686. Oct 13 was closer to balanced, 45.1 million long versus 37.0 million short (ratio 0.82), with total liquidations at the 62nd percentile of the last year, moderate rather than extreme. CoinDesk's multi-exchange, all-asset tally of more than 800 million dollars in 24 hours with about 86 percent longs is a different aggregate but tells the same story: the leverage that got hurt was long. The flip side is that there is less forced long selling left to fuel a cascade below 81,000.

US spot is trading at a discount to offshore: the Coinbase premium is -13.98 bps, beyond the -10 bps threshold that marks the bottom decile of its history, and the direction matters more than the level. The 14-day series in percent runs -0.0302 (Sep 30), -0.0807 (Oct 1), -0.0068 (Oct 2), then from Oct 8 onward -0.0561, -0.0754, -0.1099, -0.0777, -0.1132, -0.1398, which is -5.6 to -14.0 bps with every session after Oct 8 below -5 bps and the last two below -11 bps. Offshore has led the bid for six straight sessions and the gap widened into today. Historically this pattern tags with US-side de-risking, which is consistent with the Farside outflow week and the 9,261 BTC of government coins delivered to Coinbase Prime. This is a descriptive read of current data, not demonstrated predictive alpha.

CONFLICT. The equity tape (S&P near highs, VIX 15) is risk-on, but the rates and inflation tape (10-year 5.22 percent, CPI consensus re-accelerating, oil above 100) is hostile, and the crypto-specific flow read (ETF 7-day outflows, Coinbase discount at -14 bps, long-heavy liquidations) is risk-off. BTC is trading the rates and flow side, not the equity side.

US-side demand is the story. Spot ETF flows printed +1,321 BTC today, but the 7-day average is -1,099 BTC per day at the 20th historical percentile against a 30-day average of +868 BTC (44th percentile); Farside shows 678.9 million dollars of net outflows in the week ended Oct 9 and a 65.4 million dollar outflow on Oct 12, all from IBIT. The Coinbase premium is -13.98 bps, the most negative of the 14-day window. Arkham tracked about 1.5 billion dollars of US government seized crypto moving on Oct 7 and 8, including 9,261 BTC to Coinbase Prime with no sale recorded, a supply overhang. On the demand side, Strive plans a 500 million dollar preferred raise to buy BTC. Miners are healthy: Puell multiple 1.20 (56th percentile) and hash ribbons ratio 1.02 and rising. Short-term holder cost basis is about 74,400 (price divided by STH MVRV 1.116), well below spot; long-term holder SOPR spiked to 1.76 on Oct 4 and 1.51 on Oct 11, showing periodic old-coin distribution into strength. Cycle position is mid-range: MVRV Z 0.95 at the 40th percentile, NUPL 0.35 at the 41st.

hawkish. The policy rate is 3.75 percent while the 10-year yields 5.22 percent, a 147 bp term premium that says the bond market does not expect easing. Tomorrow's September CPI (2026-10-14, 8:30 ET) carries a consensus of about 0.6 percent m/m and 3.6 to 3.7 percent y/y headline, up from 3.4 percent, with core near 0.2 percent m/m and 2.5 percent y/y. Cleveland Fed's Hammack flagged early warning signs on inflation expectations and a need to cool the economy. Prediction markets on Oct 13 priced roughly 80 percent hold and 20 percent odds of a 25 bp hike at the 2026-10-28 FOMC, which falls outside this 5 to 7 day window. M2 growth of 5.66 percent y/y is the one liquidity offset. Fear and Greed reads 57, Greed, so positioning sentiment has not turned defensive despite the rates picture.

10-year at 5.22 percent, down from the 14-day peak of 5.31 percent on Oct 7 but still on a 5.2 handle for the last four sessions. Gold at 4,183 and Brent above 100 say the inflation and hard-asset bid is alive. There is no credit-spread feed in this context, so no credit read is offered.

DXY 102.13, flat: the 14-day range is 101.58 to 102.44 with no trend. The dollar is neither a headwind nor a tailwind at this stage; the macro pressure on BTC is coming from the 5.2 percent 10-year and Brent above 100 dollars, not from FX.

Risk-on. The S&P 500 at 7,805 is up 2.0 percent since Sep 30 (7,652) and sits near its highs with VIX at 15.27. BTC has not followed: it is 4.0 percent below its 86,597 high while the index holds near highs, a relative-weakness divergence that points to BTC-specific selling rather than a broad risk-off.

First downside stop is the 50-day at 81,104, 2.4 percent below spot and inside the one-day straddle range for CPI, so a test over the next 5 to 7 days is better than a coin flip on vol math alone before any directional lean; the Oct 8 and Oct 12 closes at 81,686 and 81,795 show the area has been defended twice. A daily close below 81,104 opens the Oct 23 straddle low at 79,460 (-4.4 percent), which pure vol math puts at roughly one-in-five odds by that date before skew. Below that sits the Oct 30 straddle low at 78,190 (-5.9 percent, beyond this window) and the 30-day low at 75,590 (-9.1 percent). The short-term holder cost basis near 74,400 (-10.5 percent) is where recent buyers flip to unrealized loss and where historically realized selling by that cohort accelerates; the long-term holder basis near 49,200 is not in play. Realized downside has been orderly, two-to-three percent days rather than gaps, and flat funding plus the Oct 7 and 8 flush argues against a leverage cascade, so the base case is a grind to 81,104 to 79,460 rather than a crash.

moderate, leaning low by history. Deribit DVOL closed 38.23, the 26th percentile of the last year, against realized vol of 34.6 percent (7-day), 39.3 percent (30-day) and 37.9 percent (90-day). The at-the-money straddle on Deribit prices a move of about plus or minus 1.58 percent by the Oct 15 08:00 UTC expiry (82,188 to 84,812), which covers the CPI print, plus or minus 2.15 percent by Oct 16 (81,709 to 85,291) and plus or minus 2.5 percent by Oct 17 (81,418 to 85,582); the Oct 23 expiry, just past this window, prices plus or minus 4.25 percent (79,460 to 86,540). The implied daily sigma of 1.79 percent annualizes to about 34 percent, in line with 7-day realized, so the options market is charging no extra premium for CPI or the Fed Chair appearance; a surprise in either would be under-hedged by vol even as it is pre-hedged by skew. These ranges say how far price may travel, not which way.