Morning Minute: Crypto Rebounds as 'Black Monday' Looms

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our daily news show 'FOMO HOUR' covering all of the top stories and market action.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rebound despite Black Monday fears; BTC at $82k
• Bitcoin ETFs see $228M in net outflows this past week; ETH ETFs lost $320M
• Circle plans to expand into 40 emerging market countries
• Papertrade leads onchain protocols in revenue on week with $30M
• Trenches index hits “cold” for first time since April

📈 Crypto Rebounds as Black Monday Looms

Thirty-nine years ago today, the Dow fell 22.6% in a single session. Nobody saw it coming, and the notorious “Black Monday” turned into trading history.

Crypto enters that anniversary bruised but not broken. Bitcoin sits at $82,161, down just 1.4% on the week and actually up about 1% over the last 30 days. That’s the good news and it’s nearly the only good news.

Everything else got hit harder. Ethereum fell 5.3% to $2,415. BNB dropped 3.3%, Solana 6.2%, XRP 7.2%, Dogecoin 9.4%, Hyperliquid 8.6%, Zcash 13.2%. Across the majors, the average decline outside Bitcoin was 7.5%—roughly five times what BTC gave up.

Further out it gets ugly. Starknet lost 45% on the week, LayerZero 24%, Pump.fun 22%, Ethena 20%, Fetch 20%, Midnight 19%, Canton 18%, Jupiter 18%, Filecoin 17%, Raydium 18%. The top twelve weekly losers averaged losses of more than 20%. And all of this happened in just seven days.

The ETFs bled out as well. Spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $228.4 million across the week, Ethereum ETFs $320.1 million, for a combined $548.5 million. For October, the two complexes have now bled $1.86 billion. Ethereum’s situation is the more fragile one: $14.5 billion in net assets against $12.9 billion of cumulative inflows leaves barely $1.6 billion of cushion before the entire product line is underwater on a mark-to-market basis.

But for context, what turned a bad Friday into Black Monday back then was automated selling feeding automated selling, with no circuit breakers to interrupt it. Equities have those now, and Korea’s Kospi actually tripped one last week. Crypto has none. It trades through the weekend, through the open, through everything, and we already watched what that looks like on October 10, 2025 when the liquidation cascade repriced the whole market in hours.

The setup today is the opposite of a cascade. Slow bleed, orderly exits, Bitcoin holding while the tail gets cut off—and over the weekend, a modest bid returning across the board. And there is broad concern for a “Black Monday” occurring today. Which very likely in itself means it won’t happen. Crashes don’t occur when everyone is expecting them and ready with cash on the sidelines.

The bears may want a Black Monday, but they are very unlikely to get it. At least today…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are flat on the day but rebounding from a Sunday selloff; BTC even at $82.4k; ETH even at $2,422; SOL +1% at $105; HYPE even at $79; ZEC +1% at $1,146
• Top alt movers include RAY (+8%), ARB (+8%), VVV (+6%) and PEPE (+6%)
• Oil +4% at $101; Gold +0.4% at $4,200
• Stock futures are green after news of a Putin peace summit incoming; DOW -0.1%, Nasdaq +1.1%
• Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley all told third-quarter earnings calls that tokenization is a growth opportunity rather than a threat, with David Solomon comparing it to the shift to electronic stock trading and Wells Fargo revealing its tokenized-deposit payments system is already in production
• Nine companies including Broadcom, Verizon and UnitedHealth have objected to having their shares traded on the OKX-ICE tokenized stock venue, an early test of the SEC’s five-year Innovation Exemption
• Crypto super PAC Fairshake has now spent about $46.66 million trying to keep Sherrod Brown out of the Senate, adding a $5.2 million media buy and a second $1.95 million buy this month in Ohio
• A federal judge refused to let the CFTC walk away from its own $5 million settlement with Gemini, rejecting a joint request from the agency and the exchange to vacate the 2025 consent order and ruling that shifting enforcement priorities and internal misconduct allegations aren’t enough to undo a deal Gemini signed voluntarily three weeks before trial
• Circle plans to expand into roughly 40 emerging and developing countries, with CEO Jeremy Allaire telling the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok that organic demand across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East is pulling stablecoins out of the early-adopter phase
• Nine organizations launched the Quantum Alliance, an open standards body modeled on the IETF

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $228M in net outflows this past week; the ETH ETFs lost $320M in net outflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mixed; DOGE even, SHIB even, PEPE +5%, PENGU +1%, TRUMP -2%, SPX -4%, BONK -1%
• Robinhood chain leaders fell over the weekend; Pons -20% to $176M; AI -30% at $80M; Cashcat -10% at $105M; Orbio +10%, Boner +13% and Torch +78% led top movers
• Solana top movers included Dacity +150%, Weft +550% and Pierre +29x

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Papertrade led onchain protocols in revenue on the week with $30.56M, followed by Hyperliquid at $16.4M and Pump.fun at $14.26M
• BNB Chain burned about 1.646 million BNB worth roughly $1 billion in its 37th quarterly Auto-Burn, destroying 1.65% of the token’s eventual 100 million supply target in a single quarter
• The unofficial trenches index hit “cold” for the first time since April, after reaching Euphoric conditions in August-September

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks even at 31 ETH, BAYC +6% at 5.6 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 2.4 ETH
• Hypurr (+24%) and Checks (+15%) led top movers