October is supposed to be bitcoin’s favourite month. Instead, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is closing it deep in the red for the second year running, sliding toward $77,000 as a sell-off that began in technology stocks spread through every corner of the market.
Breaking the seasonal script
CoinGlass data shows bitcoin gained in 10 of the 13 Octobers between 2013 and 2025, with a median return of nearly 15 per cent, which is why traders nicknamed the month ‘Uptober’. October 2025 broke that streak with a fall of about 4 per cent. This year has been worse: bitcoin is down more than 8 per cent on the month after touching $77,646 in the worst of the selling, with ether down to around $2,239 and BNB off more than 8 per cent in a single day.
Weak demand meets forced selling
Analysts blame a combination of soft US spot demand, liquidations of leveraged positions and outflows from crypto funds, all landing at once. The immediate trigger was a security incident at Binance, the largest exchange, which rattled confidence just as equity markets were sliding. Yet even in the rout, crypto’s quieter infrastructure story continues: as we reported recently, Lightning payments keep spreading among small merchants regardless of the price chart.
What traders are watching
With the month closing, attention turns to whether $77,000 becomes a floor or a trapdoor. Some researchers maintain bullish long-term views, arguing that forced selling exhausts itself and that institutional buyers return quickly at these levels. The full price action and the cross-asset picture are detailed in this report on bitcoin’s red October.
The psychology of the decline deserves attention alongside the mechanics. Bitcoin spent the middle of the year being described as a maturing asset, complete with corporate treasuries and pension-fund allocations, and mature assets are supposed to fall less, not merely fall alongside everything else. Yet this month it has traded like the highest-beta technology stock in the index, amplifying the Nasdaq’s mood in both directions. Long-term holders will shrug: the asset has survived far deeper drawdowns, and its supply schedule does not care about Octobers. But the tourists who arrived for the seasonal trade have been handed a lesson the market teaches every cycle, that patterns persist until the moment too many people are positioned for them.
A second consecutive losing October does not kill a decade-long seasonal pattern, but it does demote it from strategy to trivia. Bitcoin is ending the month the way it spent much of it: hostage to the same risk appetite that moves tech stocks, and waiting for a catalyst of its own.
