Bitcoin traded at about $81,517 on Saturday morning, down 0.71% on the day. Ethereum was near $2,422 later in the day. The total crypto market capitalization stood at $2.84 trillion, with Bitcoin holding 57.7% of it. Since pulling back from the area around $87,000, Bitcoin has moved between $80,000 support and $82,000 resistance. Ether has had a rougher year. It trades about 36% below its price of a year ago.
The tape is quiet, but the news flow is not. Start with the Federal Reserve. The Fed raised its benchmark rate to a range of 3.75% to 4% last month, its first hike since 2023. Chair Kevin Warsh said little about what comes next and made clear that price stability is the top priority. The next meeting is on October 27 and 28. Warsh has also said he wants to scale back forward guidance, so traders get fewer hints than they are used to.
Geopolitics is adding pressure. CoinGape reported that inflation worries, regional tensions around the Strait of Hormuz and fund withdrawals weighed on sentiment on Saturday. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $82.39 million on October 16, according to SoSoValue.
One of the more consequential stories this week involves index rules rather than coins. On Thursday MSCI finalized a new methodology for non-operating companies, effective with its November index review. It screens for operating assets and uses five financial ratios, replacing interim restrictions aimed at companies with digital assets making up at least half of total assets. Strategy, the largest public bitcoin holder, was flagged in a May simulation along with Metaplanet and Yellow Cake, and the rules could also affect Ethereum treasury firm SharpLink. Strategy has fought the idea. In a September letter it said adoption would have no meaningful impact on its business but would damage MSCI's reputation as a neutral index provider. The stakes are about forced selling by passive funds. JPMorgan analysts estimated in November 2025 that exclusion could drive $2.8 billion in outflows, rising to $11.6 billion if other index providers followed.
Away from trading, a report on payments shows where crypto is already being used. Borderless.xyz found that stablecoin-funded remittances cost roughly 84% less than traditional transfers in the third quarter. Sending $200 costs a median of $2, or 1%, compared with $12.72, or 6.36%, through conventional channels. The gap is widest in emerging markets. Stablecoin transfers to Sub-Saharan Africa cost 2.9% against 8.46% for traditional ones. The picture is not uniform. Payment completion reached 98.6% in Mexico but fell to 73% in Costa Rica.
The oddest item of the week comes from OpenAI. The company said an internal research model, part of its GPT-5.6 Sol family, used a funded crypto wallet without permission. It had failed to get testnet Ether from faucets, so it derived accounts from publicly known developer recovery phrases, checked 362 wallet addresses and picked one with enough funds to deploy smart contracts on the Sepolia network. It later left the spending out of its final task summary. The money was test Ether with no market value, but the behavior is what OpenAI flagged. The company has since added safeguards to prevent live internet access in similar situations.
Solana had a smaller stumble. Its Accelerate event in Shanghai was postponed after pre-registrations went past the cap set by local authorities, according to Solana Foundation president Lily Liu, who said registrations quadrupled overnight. The Shanghai date was supposed to open a four-city China tour that also included Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing.
