BITCOIN HELD THE ETF FLOOR WITHOUT ETF BUYERS — SINCE JULY 2024, THEIR MONEY SHOWS UP WHEN THEY’RE 10% IN PROFIT

Glassnode says bitcoin bounced off the ETF cost basis, its estimate of what the average US spot ETF buyer paid, about $81,500. On a daily close, the line held. Bitcoin hit $80,400 on OKX on Oct 8 and closed the day at $81,760. It dipped to $81,033 on the night of Oct 12, Eastern, and bounced again.

The ETF buyers weren't the ones holding it. The funds lost a net $678.9 million from Oct 5 to Oct 9, which we covered Oct 12, and another $65.4 million on Oct 12, per Farside. Over the same five days Strive bought 3,311 bitcoin at about $84,500 each, roughly $280 million, according to the 8-K it filed Oct 13.

That's normal for ETF money. We ran Farside's daily flows back to July 2024 and sorted each day by how far bitcoin closed from the average ETF buyer's price. On days it closed more than 10% above, the funds took in $116 million to $161 million on an average day. Within 3% of breakeven, the average day ran anywhere from $18 million out to $64 million in. Pretty much a wash. Those are ranges because the cost basis depends on the math. Our four versions put it between $74,900 and $84,500 as of Oct 12, and glassnode's $81,500 is one more.

So the line everybody's calling support isn't where ETF buyers buy. They show up once they're already winning. One of the buyers near the line that week was Strive, whose common share count rose 9.4% and whose SATA preferred count rose 3.9% the same week. The filing doesn't say which paid for the coins. Bitcoin per Strive share still went up 1.7%, to about 29,690 sats. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $83,340.