Bitcoin Slips Below $81,000 as Bond Market Shift Fuels Risk-Asset Selloff

Bitcoin traded briefly below $81,000 on Oct. 22, part of a broad retreat from risk assets. The Nasdaq fell more than 2%. Spot gold dropped about 2.7% to $4,025, and silver slid about 5.8% to roughly $54.63. The 10-year Treasury yield fell from 5.146% to below 5%, its largest one-day decline in more than two years. Brent crude touched $114.70 intraday, the highest level of the year. The moves fit a pattern in which funding pressures drive investors into bonds and out of riskier assets. Bitcoin traded in step with equities, while gold weakened even as yields fell and the dollar index touched its lowest level since Oct. 1. The World Gold Council's Oct. 19 Weekly Markets Monitor, titled "Bonds back in the room," flagged a Treasury rally that coincided with the Nasdaq decline despite elevated inflation. Renewed demand for bonds as a safe asset could compete with gold for investment capital, the council said, while acknowledging that lower yields reduce the cost of holding gold in terms of forgone returns. Price action alone does not identify the source of bond buying; gold ETF flows, real yields and futures positioning would help separate competing explanations. Silver's steeper drop reflects its greater sensitivity to investor positioning and industrial demand. Meta reported third-quarter revenue of $64.6 billion, up 26%. Capital expenditures totaled $34.9 billion, and free cash flow was negative $2.1 billion. The company raised the lower end of its 2026 capital expenditure guidance by $5 billion, producing a range of $135 billion to $145 billion, and announced a new non-voting share class designed in part to aid financing. Meta shares fell about 8% on Oct. 22. Its five-year credit default swap spread widened 7.6 basis points to a record 114.79 basis points. Oracle's spread sat close to a record, and Amazon's approached its highest level since March 2020. Those credit signals cover only a handful of large issuers; broader investment-grade and high-yield spread indexes would need to confirm a market-wide credit squeeze. Brent also climbed above $111, the highest since May, after renewed Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia heightened supply concerns. Costlier fuel lifts inflation and erodes the spending power of households and companies. Markets assign roughly a 78% probability to a December rate increase, while expecting the Fed to hold at its Oct. 28 decision, with the policy range at 3.75% to 4%. The oil shock keeps rate expectations elevated, curbing the support gold normally draws from falling yields. Treasury buyers may be putting growth risks ahead of inflation, though Thursday's prices do not establish how those concerns balance. Glassnode's Oct. 21 report estimates average acquisition costs near $81,500 for US spot Bitcoin ETFs and near $80,200 for corporate treasuries, and identifies renewed spot buying interest around $80,000. Supply sitting above the market runs between $85,000 and $87,500, where older holders' cost bases overlap with liquidation clusters. Friday brings S&P Global flash purchasing managers' indexes at 9:45 a.m. Eastern, followed by the final University of Michigan survey at 10:00 a.m. Consensus puts manufacturing PMI at about 55.5, down from 55.9, and services PMI at about 58.0, down from 58.8. The preliminary Michigan survey showed one-year inflation expectations of 4.7% and longer-term expectations of 3.5%. Stable bonds, retreating oil and recovering equities would point to fading defensive demand. Bitcoin holding $80,000 to $81,500 would show buying at acquisition costs absorbing selling. Weaker PMIs alongside higher inflation expectations would signal growth worries combined with stubborn inflation, a harder backdrop for Bitcoin. A daily close below $80,000 would leave average ETF and corporate treasury holders with losses and turn attention to the True Market Mean near $77,600.