TL;DR

• Bitcoin soared to around $67,400, with some metrics suggesting potential for further gains.
• However, some bearish signals, such as an overvalued MVRV ratio and overbought RSI, indicate a possible price pullback.

BTC Price Explosion Incoming?

The price of the leading cryptocurrency surged by over eight grand in the past week, currently trading at around $67,400 (per CoinGecko’s data). The rally fueled huge enthusiasm among BTC proponents, many of whom assumed that “Uptober” was finally here.

Some important indicators signal that the asset has yet to witness substantial gains. One example is the BTC supply stored on exchanges, which, according to X user Ali Martinez, has tumbled to a five-year low. 

Such a development is generally considered bullish since it suggests that holders might be shifting from centralized platforms to self-custody methods (which reduces the immediate selling pressure). Moreover, fundamental economic principles dictate that BTC’s price should head north if demand remains constant or increases while the available supply drops.

A metric hinting that BTC could be ahead of a more volatile period is the growing Open Interest. As CryptoPotato reported on October 15, the figure reached an all-time high of $19.8 billion. It kept rising in the following hours, surpassing $20 billion on October 16 (per CryptoQuant’s data).

The rise of OI is combined with BTC funding rates that have hit their highest positive levels in the past two months. This indicates that most of the open interest is comprised of long positions, which, combined with the growing demand reported by CryptoQuant’s CEO, reaffirms the narrative about a potential rally. 

Some Bearish Factors

Contrary to the aforementioned indicators suggesting that the primary cryptocurrency could experience another bullish momentum soon, some hint at the opposite scenario.

BTC’s MVRV (Market Value to Realized Value), for instance, has been gradually increasing in the past week, crossing the critical ratio of 2. Readings above that mark typically show that the asset could be overvalued and poised for a pullback.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is next on the list. This technical analysis tool measures the speed and change of price movements and is commonly used to identify overbought or oversold conditions. When the ratio is above 70, it indicates that BTC is in overbought territory, meaning a correction could be imminent. The RSI has been hovering above that level in the past three days. 

Bitcoin’s positive price movements took it to a new multi-month peak of almost $68,500 yesterday, but the asset lost some traction and now sits above $67,000.

The altcoins are also quite sluggish today, with XRP gaining 2.5%, while two meme coins have risen the most.

BTC’s Way Up

It’s safe to say that was a positive seven-day period for the primary cryptocurrency. Precisely a week ago, the bears seemed in complete control of the market as they pushed it south hard to a multi-week low of under $59,000.

However, the bulls stepped up their game at this point and didn’t allow any further pain. Just the opposite, BTC started regaining traction quickly and stood around $63,000 during the weekend. The business week started on an even more positive note, with a surge toward $68,000 on Tuesday.

After a sudden and violent $3,000 correction, bitcoin went on the offensive once again and jumped to $68,450 (on Bitstamp) yesterday, which became its highest price tag since late July.

Nevertheless, it failed to maintain its run despite the massive inflows into the spot BTC ETFs and now sits over a grand lower. Still, its market cap remains at $1.330 trillion, while its dominance over the alts is at a multi-year high of 55% on CG and 59% on other monitoring resources.

Memes in the Zone

Most of the larger-cap alts have remained sluggish on a daily scale. ETH, BNB, SOL, DOGE, TRX, and TON have produced either minor gains or insignificant losses. Ripple’s XRP has gained the most – 2.4%, and now trades above $0.55.

The top performers from the largest 100 alts are meme coins. BONK has surged by 7% and now sits close to $0.000024, while NEIRO is up by 5.5% and has a price tag of $0.00199. SUI, POPCAT, and XLM follow suit.

The total crypto market cap has remained at essentially the same spot as yesterday at around $2.420 trillion on CG.

Radiant Capital was hacked on Wednesday, resulting in losses exceeding $50 million.

Several blockchain security firms have reported that the exploit occurred due to an apparent cyberattack targeting the platform’s smart contracts on both the Binance and Arbitrum networks.

Compromised Multisig

The incident was first detected by blockchain security firm Ancilia Inc., which reported suspicious activity on a Radiant Capital smart contract on the BNB Chain at 1:35 PM ET in an X post.

According to Ancilia, several on-chain transactions showed that hackers drained at least $18 million from Radiant on the BNB network. The attack soon spread to its liquidity pools on the Ethereum layer-2 network Arbitrum, where more assets were compromised.

Web3 security firm De.Fi explained that the bad actors gained control by compromising a multisig, which requires the approval of multiple signers to execute transactions. The attacker was able to obtain the private keys of 3 out of the 11 signers that secure Radiant’s wallet. This gave them enough access to upgrade the platform’s smart contracts and transfer ownership.

Hacken reported that the funds were drained from various trading pools on Radiant, including those holding popular cryptocurrencies such as USDC, USDT, wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), wrapped Ethereum (wETH), Binance Coin (wBNB), and others.

Spot On Chain disclosed that the protocol was exploited for $53 million in crypto assets. The hacker has since converted the stolen funds into native tokens, holding 12,835 ETH (valued at $33.56 million) and 32,113 BNB (worth $19.35 million) across two wallet addresses.

Radiant Capital’s Response

The DeFi platform confirmed the incident in an X post, stating that it was aware of suspicious activity affecting its lending markets on the Binance Chain and Arbitrum. It responded by suspending its markets on Ethereum and the layer-2 network Base “until further notice” while it investigates the breach.

“We are aware of an issue with the Radiant Lending markets on Binance Chain and Arbitrum.”

The announcement also mentioned that Radiant is working with several Web3 security partners, including SEAL911, Hypernative, ZeroShadow, and Chainalysis, to resolve the situation and prevent further damage. Additionally, it has urged users to revoke all permissions to the smart contracts powering its protocol.

Meanwhile, this marks the second exploit the protocol has faced this year. In January 2024, the lending platform lost $4.5 million in an unrelated hack caused by a vulnerability in its smart contracts.