Bitcoin’s $80K Test: A Silver Echo, a $10 Lesson and a Very Expensive Circle of Death

Bitcoin closed at $80,154 on October 25 after closing at $82,042 the prior week, marking a second consecutive weekly close below $83,000 and confirming what analyst Benjamin Cowen calls a “fake-out.” Cowen, a member of BeInCrypto’s Market Intelligence Expert Council, said a weekly close above roughly $84,000 would undercut his bearish thesis, while a decline toward the bull market support band (BMSB) around $72,000 to $76,000 could signal further weakness. “What keeps me up at night is more so what if it follows like the silver path… I hope it doesn’t and I’m constantly looking for reasons for why it won’t,” Cowen said. Silver reached a 2011 peak near $49 before falling to about $14 by 2015, a 73% decline over 4 years; it closed Friday at $53.83, nearly 56% below its January record and at its lowest level of 2026.

Cowen expanded his bearish roadmap into an 11-step sequence: Bitcoin posts a second weekly close below $83,000; the fake-out is confirmed; $BTC drops to the BMSB; the Federal Reserve holds rates on Oct. 28; Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation comes in hot on Oct. 29; the 10-year Treasury yield climbs again; Bitcoin and stocks fall; oil reaches $120; the Fed raises rates in December; the US Dollar Index (DXY) rises into the Fed’s December meeting; and long-term yields drop into year-end. If one step fails, Cowen says, the rest becomes doubtful. He previously wrote on October 24, 2026: “A plausible path to consider (in order). Becomes void if Bitcoin gets and holds back above $83k -Bitcoin weekly close below $83k (again) -Fakeout confirmed (Oct 25) -Fed does not raise rates (Oct 28) -PCE comes in hot (Oct 29) -Oil spikes over the Iran war (~$120) -Long end…”

Market conditions already show pressure around $BTC. During one four-hour selloff, long positions accounted for $91.19 million of $95.22 million in crypto liquidations, while US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost about $322 million on October 22. Glassnode estimates that companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets paid about $80,000 per coin on average, so falling below that level would place the average corporate treasury position into a loss without automatically forcing sales. Bitcoin also faced a $77,876 downside level identified by BeInCrypto, followed by a support zone between roughly $76,700 and $72,500. The Federal Reserve meets October 27–28, September inflation data follows on October 29, and Brent settled at $116.72 on Friday as Middle East supply fears intensified. Binance Research has calculated Bitcoin’s average decline during previous US midterm election years at 56%, although that record covers only three Bitcoin cycles.

Glassnode reported that Bitcoin futures open interest climbed from $36.5 billion to $37.5 billion over the past week, leaving the futures market heavily exposed to further price swings. Bastian Keller, the trader known as Bitbull, told BeInCrypto at TOKEN2049 Singapore that trading psychology can matter more than predicting the next price move. Keller, who founded Bitbull Trading and the TradeMania trading community and software platform, said practice with fake money can create unrealistic confidence. “When it’s come then to real money, yeah, it’s completely different,” Keller said. “Emotions coming in, FOMO coming in, and then end of the day your your brain decide what you’re doing.” He recommends beginning with very small amounts of real money: “You can trade with $10. You can trade with $50.”

Keller described a trading “circle of death” in which losses prompt immediate attempts to recover them, followed by progressively larger positions and revenge trading. “Then you’re going to your revenge trading, you lose more, you lose more, you lose more, and then everything is gone,” Keller explained. “I was one of these guys before.” Before entering cryptocurrency in 2018, Keller traded Forex and told BeInCrypto he was scammed and struggled with the experience. Bitcoin nearly touched $85,000 last week before struggling to hold $80,000, while the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Ethereum ($ETH) lost their 50-day averages and moved toward their bull market support bands.