Market update - October 30th, 2026

Bitcoin held its ground through a Fed hold and a nervous pre-election week

Bitcoin spent most of the week consolidating with admirable discipline, quickly recovering a brief dip below US$77k on Thursday. Investors are positioned defensively, the premium traders pay to hold leveraged bets on rising prices has shrunk, and there is little appetite to chase risk ahead of the US elections. Yet despite that rather flat surface, Bitcoin has held up better than much of the broader crypto market and many more volatile assets. It does not feel like a market suddenly overcome with optimism, more one becoming increasingly selective about where it is prepared to take risk.

A hold, not an all-clear

Rates were left unchanged at 3.75% to 4.00%, which surprised nobody, while Fed Chair Kevin Warsh was less hawkish than many had feared.¹ His view was that September’s hike is beginning to have an effect, financial conditions have tightened and the Committee can now afford the luxury of waiting for more evidence. He was careful not to imply that tightening is over, but equally avoided commentary that would have sent short-dated yields sharply higher. The relief therefore came less from any sense that the Fed is finished than from the absence of any signal that it intends to go beyond the further hike already pencilled in for this year. The official statement still described inflation as elevated and economic activity as expanding at a strong pace.¹

The data behind that caution are not encouraging. September CPI, published earlier in the month, ran at 3.7% year-on-year,² and last Friday’s flash PMI offered little consolation. The composite remained firmly expansionary, while selling-price inflation accelerated to its fastest pace since August 2022.³ The Fed is therefore stuck with a particularly awkward combination: growth that refuses to roll over politely and inflation that refuses to disappear on cue.

Alphabet’s earnings have added another wrinkle.⁴ Revenue was not the problem. The concern is that markets have become rather less willing than they were a few months ago to reward anything wearing an AI badge, and the bar for a convincing earnings beat has risen sharply. Disappointment is being punished accordingly. Bitcoin has been caught in some of that volatility, but has again behaved with rather more composure than many of its neighbours.

Wall Street moves onto crypto rails

One development this week deserves rather more attention than it has received. trade[XYZ] and ICE, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, plan to bring 24/7 perpetual futures (futures contracts with no expiry date that trade around the clock) to US investors, built on Hyperliquid, a blockchain-based trading venue. The launch remains subject to CFTC approval.⁵ For Hyperliquid, this is a significant endorsement. It suggests the technology is beginning to move beyond crypto-native experimentation and into the architecture of regulated traditional markets, precisely the sort of crossover we have expected as tokenisation (issuing conventional assets on a blockchain) and 24/7 trading mature.

Elections and oil

Polymarket implies a 93% probability that Democrats take the House and a 68% probability that they also take the Senate.⁶ Divided government may initially be read as negative for crypto, but we would be wary of pushing that conclusion too far. Stablecoin and digital asset policy has become increasingly bipartisan. Stablecoins, digital dollars backed largely by short-dated US Treasuries, are also a new source of demand for government debt, and that appeal is unlikely to disappear simply because Congress changes colour.

Israel’s election has produced no clear majority,⁷ while renewed Middle East tensions continue to push energy prices higher. If that persists, the consequences are fairly mechanical: higher oil, firmer inflation expectations and a Fed with even less room to soften. It remains one of the cleaner channels through which geopolitics can still feed directly into Bitcoin.

Waiting, without a tantrum

So the market waits. For the elections, for the next inflation print, for the Fed, and perhaps for somebody else to blink first geopolitically. Bitcoin is not breaking higher, but neither has it been willing to break lower despite tighter policy expectations, volatile equities and elevated geopolitical risk. In a market this uncertain, its refusal to have a tantrum is probably the most constructive signal on offer.

Sources

1. Federal Reserve, FOMC statement and Chair Warsh press conference transcript (preliminary), 28 Oct 2026

2. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, September 2026, released 14 Oct 2026

3. S&P Global, Flash US PMI, October 2026, released 23 Oct 2026

4. Alphabet, Q3 2026 earnings release, 28 Oct 2026

5. trade[XYZ], announcement of planned US perpetual futures market with ICE, 29 Oct 2026

6. Polymarket, US 2026 midterm election markets, accessed 29 Oct 2026

7. Associated Press, Israeli election results and coalition outlook, 27–28 Oct 2026