Bitcoin’s violent futures deleveraging earlier this month reset market positioning but did not break the broader bull trend, according to Julio Moreno, Head of Research at CryptoQuant. Speaking on the Milk Road podcast on October 20, Moreno argued that the path to fresh highs remains open if spot demand stabilizes and the macro overhang from US–China tariff negotiations clears. The key inflection he’s watching is Bitcoin reclaiming its on-chain traders’ realized price near $115,000. “The resistance will be around $115K,” he said. “If the price goes above that… the range that we could expect is $150–$195K. To the downside… it’s around like $100K.”
The relative resilience of spot price—Bitcoin “only got to… $110,000” that day, after a wick to “103,000” two days prior—underscored, in his view, that demand and the cycle’s price floor sit well above prior cycles even amid forced unwinds. “It doesn’t put you in a bearish market,” Moreno said, adding that buyers still absorbed supply quickly enough to avert a trend break.
CryptoQuant’s composite “bull score” of ten on-chain indicators had already rolled over before the crash, dropping from roughly 80 to 40 by October 6 as momentum cooled and spot demand began to contract. After the liquidation, the score slid toward 20, which Moreno described as “on the bearish side right now.” He stressed that on-chain metrics are not price predictors so much as risk gauges: “It’s going to signal to you the risks… when all these metrics… converge into telling you there’s increasing risks, then it’s when you have to be more careful.”
Several datapoints pointed to a market that was stretched into the shock. Total crypto open interest set a record near $78 billion just before the event, a classic over-leverage tell. Profit-taking surged above $3 billion in early October as spot neared the prior all-time high in the $124K–$126K zone, fitting CryptoQuant’s “profit–pause–push” framework in which aggressive realization precedes cooling.
Moreno also highlighted that spot demand flipped from growth to contraction around October 6—days before tariff headlines and the liquidation—helping explain why the risk backdrop was deteriorating even without the macro spark. “We were starting to see some high profit taking… not only because of the macro events,” he said.
Altcoins were far more fragile around the shock. Transactions sending altcoins to exchanges spiked to year-to-date highs during the liquidation, signaling a scramble for exits across low-liquidity names. Moreno cautioned that this cycle has been notably selective across sectors rather than a blanket “alt season,” and reiterated a theme that has become more obvious in 2025: robust protocol activity and fee generation no longer translate mechanically into token outperformance without explicit economic linkage. “Even if the protocol is doing well doesn’t necessarily mean that the token is going to do well,” he said.
That leaves Bitcoin boxed between a tactical resistance and a psychological floor. Moreno pegs the traders’ on-chain realized price near $115,000 as first resistance and the $100,000 area—where short-term holders sit on roughly a 10% unrealized loss—as the downside line where forced selling typically abates in bull markets.
A decisive reclaim of $115K would, in his model, validate a run toward $150,000–$195,000. “We’re not that far… from the previous all-time high,” he said, adding that new highs in Q4 are plausible if the tariff overhang resolves. As for the cycle peak, he leans against an extended mania deep into 2026 or 2027, citing CryptoQuant’s diminishing-intensity bull readout even as price has risen. “I would not expect… more than Q1 2026,” he said, with the caveat that timing tops remains guesswork. “Probably we all are going to be wrong.”
At press time, BTC traded at $108,187.
