Bitcoin’s Uptober hit the runway hard: A 7.32% crash, a $6.3B hack and two red months 🪂

Bitcoin ($BTC) closed October 2026 down 7.32% against the greenback, its worst monthly performance since 2014, as the major $6.3 billion Binance hack rattled an already volatile market. The result marked the first consecutive October losses since 2011 and 2012, leaving $BTC below $80,000 after trading between $76,337 and $81,840 over the final seven days.

The selloff followed an October in which the artificial intelligence trade cracked and Bitcoin fell about 4% late Thursday, hours before Friday’s Nasdaq selloff and in step with the historic Binance breach. Reports of an Oct. 29 attack on Binance hot wallets intensified market anxiety, while leveraged liquidations exceeded $1.5 billion during the initial 24-hour period. Binance pledged to cover customer losses using company resources and its Secure Asset Fund for Users, and blockchain investigators estimated approximately $3 billion in stolen assets had been frozen.

October’s result ranked behind only three worse performances in $BTC’s recorded history: 2011’s 34.7% decline, 2014’s 12.6% retreat and 2012’s 11.1% loss. CoinGlass.com data covering the 16 completed Octobers from 2010 through 2025 showed that 11 finished positive, producing a 69% winning record, an average return of 26.1% and a median gain of 12.9%. Another dataset showed Bitcoin rose in 10 of 13 Octobers through 2025, with a median gain near 15%. October 2025 closed down 3.9%, making 2026 the second straight lower October. Recent comparisons included gains of 40% in October 2021, 28.6% in 2023 and 10.9% in 2024, alongside a 4.6% loss in 2018.

The broader market shift involved oil, bonds and AI-related equities. Oil futures climbed as Treasury yields slid, breaking an 80% correlation seen this year. Jeffrey Rosenberg, a senior portfolio manager at BlackRock, told CNBC that the Magnificent Seven retreated through October and explained the change with the view that “In the market’s mind, the geopolitical risk is secondary to AI risk.” Markets interpreted AI weakness as a warning for US growth, pulling yields lower even as oil rose. Rosenberg described third-quarter gross domestic product as strong and AI-related, noting that business investment rose 12.7%, the biggest gain outside the pandemic since 2011.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh disagreed on Wednesday, arguing that capital spending was broadening beyond narrow pockets and citing rising oil as a factor in the central bank’s inflation fight. Rate futures had pointed to a December hike by mid-October as Fed rate hike bets built. Google posted its largest one-day drop on record the previous week, erasing about $500 billion in value, while Microsoft returned to the public bond market after nearly a decade. Credit default swap spreads, which price default insurance, sit near 55 for Microsoft and closer to 300 for Oracle. Rosenberg said the bond market can absorb an expected $4 trillion of AI debt over four years, with the cost taking the form of lower prices and wider spreads.