Bitcoin Reclaims $80K, but Zcash and MemeCore Steal the Day

Bitcoin

Bitcoin climbed back above $80,000 on Tuesday ahead of the Fed decision, but its 1.2% gain trailed a group of altcoins that rose 4% to 12%.

Bitcoin traded near $80,880 at 21:10 UTC on October 27, according to CoinMarketCap, after days of quiet trading as recent buyers sold at a loss.

Bitcoin’s recovery is real, but small

The session opened with another dip under $80,000 before buyers stepped in during the second half of the US day. By the evening, BTC was up 1.2% over 24 hours and still adding 0.28% on the hour.

That still leaves Bitcoin down 2.52% over seven days. Ether had the better day, up 1.8% to $2,350 at the time of writing, but the worse week, down 4.4%. The same report notes that large holders are turning bearish for the first time since June, a sign that the bounce is being bought at a round number rather than chased.

Caution ahead of Wednesday explains part of that. The Federal Reserve announces its decision at 18:00 UTC, with markets pricing about a 90% chance of no change. With a hold largely expected, the reaction is likely to hinge on what the Fed signals for December.

Where the day’s bigger moves came from

The stronger percentages sat further down the market. CoinMarketCap’s 24-hour gainers list late on Tuesday looked like this:

Outside MemeCore, every name on the list gained between roughly 4% and 6%. That tight band looks more like a modest risk-on day amplified by smaller caps than a broad rotation out of Bitcoin, and several of the movers had something specific behind them.

Zcash had a stack of reasons

Zcash, ranked among the ten largest cryptocurrencies, added 6.3% to $1,304. The privacy coin turns ten on October 28, and Grayscale’s Zcash ETF has just posted its strongest weekly inflows since mid-September. Its next network upgrade, NU7, is scheduled for around November 5 and cuts target block times from 75 seconds to 25.

Positioning added fuel. ZEC open interest was above $1.5 billion with heavy short positioning earlier on Tuesday, a setup where a push higher can force some of those shorts to buy back. Moves built partly on short covering can unwind quickly once the covering is done.

Zcash wasn’t the only privacy-oriented coin on the list. Dash, which has offered optional private transactions since its early years, gained 4.35%, though it was already slipping on the hour, down 0.29% when the snapshot was taken.

HYPE got a new US door

Hyperliquid’s HYPE rose 4.3% to $81 on the same day Crypto.com opened CFTC-regulated perpetual futures to eligible US traders, with HYPE among the five launch contracts. That gives US traders a regulated venue for HYPE perps while their route onto Hyperliquid itself remains closed. Whether the listing drove the move is impossible to separate from the wider bounce, but the timing matched.

MemeCore and the meme coins: big moves, thin books

MemeCore led the board with a 12.2% gain to $1.06. The token has a history of double-digit daily swings, and analysts have pointed to thin liquidity as the reason such tokens dominate gainers lists: it takes relatively little money to move the price. PEPE and SPX6900, up 5.7% and 4.1%, fit the same pattern, high-beta trades that tend to jump when Bitcoin steadies and fall harder when it doesn’t.

The rest of the list was quieter on news. Bitcoin Cash, a payment-focused fork from 2017, added 4.4%, and NEAR gained 4.6% without a single obvious trigger in the day’s headlines.

What comes next

The day shows little of what a broad altcoin rotation usually looks like. Ether trailed most of the gainers, and the biggest moves came from tokens with specific catalysts or thin order books. The next few days bring several events that can reset that picture quickly.

We covered the Fed, the options expiry and the midterms in more detail in our look at Bitcoin’s week of catalysts. For Bitcoin itself, the levels from our recent chart work still apply: the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement near $80,370 sits just under the current price, and the 50-day moving average near $81,866 is the next hurdle. Holding above $80,000 on a daily close into the Fed would give the altcoin gains a firmer base. Losing it again would show how many of Tuesday’s movers can keep their gains without Bitcoin’s support.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency prices are volatile.

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