Key Takeaways
- Contrary to historical patterns, October 2025 was a negative month for bitcoin with a 4% decline.
- Institutional investors are holding steady, supporting the bitcoin price during latest volatility.
- Analysts see no clear signs of a longer-term retreat.
Bitcoin’s 13% pullback over the past month has rattled a market that spent most of the last two years celebrating new cryptocurrency highs, record exchange-traded fund inflows, and a wave of institutional adoption. With ether and solana dropping even more sharply than bitcoin, the question dominating investors’ minds is whether this is the start of a prolonged period of decline- or just turbulence in a volatile asset class.
October is historically a great month for the world’s top cryptocurrency: BTC delivered an average gain of 20% during that month from 2013 to 2024. That’s why bitcoin traders have come to colloquially refer to the month as Uptober. 2025 was a totally different story: Between Oct. 6 and Nov. 6, bitcoin fell from $124,000 to $101,000, dipping below the psychological threshold of $100,000 twice last week. In recent days, it has risen back to $106,000.
Analysts cite a wide range of macroeconomic and market dynamic factors as driving the selloff. Tough talk from central bankers and fading hopes for near-term rate cuts pushed investors out of risky assets such as cryptocurrencies, while renewed geopolitical and trade tensions further soured sentiment.
But more significantly when it came to the bitcoin’s steep fall, as prices dipped, leveraged traders - who use borrowed money to fund their trades - had to unwind positions, triggering liquidations that deepened the selloff. Meanwhile, other longtime investors took profits, accelerating the pullback.
Macro Forces Spark Bitcoin Selloff
Eliézer Ndinga, head of research at 21Shares, traces the start of the selloff to US President Donald Trump’s threat in October to impose a 100% tariff on rare earths from China. Because the comment came just minutes after US markets had closed on Friday Oct. 10, Ndinga argues that crypto became the only immediately liquid asset investors could sell to hedge against macro risk. “Cryptocurrencies had been the only asset available to be sold in order to generate liquidity and get protection against market downturn,” he says, adding that “fundamentals are still solid” and that the episode should be seen as short-term.
“Roughly $19 billion in liquidations cascaded through exchanges in less than 24 hours, triggering a sharp liquidity crunch and broad-based risk aversion,” according to Dovile Silenskyte, digital assets research director at WisdomTree. “Since then, the market has been digesting that shock.”
CoinShares’ digital asset analyst Matthew Kimmell, sees a broader set of pressures. He says longtime bitcoin holders are realizing profits after half a decade or more of volatility and that a “large liquidation cascade in mid-October” triggered broader risk aversion. Corporate demand has softened as well, while “macro uncertainty is likely weighing on overall risk appetite.”
Is This The End of the Crypto Rally?
Whether the pullback marks the beginning of what traders term a ‘crypto winter’ is more complicated. Bitcoin has lived through three major winters: from December 2013 to January 2015, December 2017 to December 2018, and November 2021 to November 2022. In those periods, bitcoin declined roughly 75%, 83%, and 73%, respectively.
“Today’s decline is minor by comparison,” says Silenskyte. “While sentiment cooled after October’s flash crash, the market structure is far stronger than in past cycles.”
According to CoinShares’ Kimmell: “Should the market continue to follow its historical four-year cycle pattern, the current timing also aligns with where prior bull markets have tended to top out.” But he also emphasizes what’s different this time: Leverage appears lower than in past peaks, macro expectations lean toward looser policy, and altcoins haven’t shown the euphoric “blow-off-top” behavior typical of a true cycle crest.
21Shares’ Ndinga thinks that the past template is fading. He argues that 2025 is “the first year in which the usual pattern ‘bull run, strong downturn, long recover’ changed,” pointing to the fact that bitcoin remains above $100,000 with surprisingly subdued volatility nearly two years after the 2024 halving.
Crypto ETF Flows
Institutional players are central to understanding the current market. October was positive for crypto ETF inflows, especially into bitcoin and ethereum, but ETFs have seen moderate selling over the last two weeks. Interestingly, solana has continued to attract steady inflows every week since April.
“Professional investors appear cautious, but they’re not retreating entirely,” says CoinShares’ Kimmell. “If they were, we’d be seeing a much larger volume of outflows from crypto ETFs.”
“The selloff has been driven primarily by short-term positioning and derivatives unwinds, rather than fundamental shifts in conviction,” WisdomTree’s Silenskyte says. “Long-term cohorts continue to hold through volatility; this looks more like a cyclical reset within an ongoing institutional adoption phase than the onset of another crypto winter,” he says.
21Shares’ Ndinga goes further, arguing that institutional commitment is rising, not falling. “One of the key reasons convincing us this turbulence is temporary is exactly the fact that institutional investors, who are long-term holders, have not receded from the market,” he says.
What’s Next for Bitcoin
Whether the market ultimately enters another ‘crypto winter’ or simply sheds some heat after an intense year, both Ndinga and Kimmell land on a similar conclusion: Bitcoin is behaving less like a speculative niche investment and more like a macro asset, sensitive to real yields, liquidity flows, and market risk appetite— in all respects part of the global financial system.
Kimmell, for his part, says that “a genuine crypto winter typically has ongoing waves of leverage liquidations, strong exchange outflows, large wallet supply activations, declining institutional interest, crypto industry bankruptcies, and a risk-off macro backdrop.”
Instead, Kimmell expects bitcoin to remain “range-bound with periods of volatility tied to macro data, regulation, and market positioning,” while staying optimistic about the medium-term outlook as monetary conditions ease and institutional participation deepens. Ndinga frames short-term volatility as “healthy” after a long rally and record inflows, maintaining that “as long as BTC holds above $100,000, the structural uptrend remains intact.”
According to WisdomTree’s Silenskyte, “as liquidity conditions normalize and macro uncertainty eases, bitcoin could stabilize and retest prior range highs. The key variable will be the broader risk environment: Improved sentiment and steady institutional inflows could set the stage for recovery into year-end.”
