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The Robot Boom Is Here. Which Company Comes Out on Top?
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Pro Swing Trader Daily Brief
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Good morning. At 2:00 p.m. New York time, the Fed will almost certainly leave rates where they are.
CME FedWatch puts the odds of a hold at about 92% (CoinDesk). So the decision isn't the news. What Chair Kevin Warsh says at 2:30 about December is.
Here's the morning in three numbers:
$81,694: Bitcoin's high overnight, at 4 a.m. ET, as a chip rally in Asia spilled into crypto (Coinbase).
$176M: what US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in on Tuesday. It's their second inflow day in a row (Farside, TFTC).
$80,670: where Bitcoin is as I write, about $1,000 under that high.
What the Fed is expected to do
The rate is 3.75% to 4.00%, after a hike in September. Traders see a hold today and roughly an 80% chance of another hike at the December meeting (investingLive).
Economist Alan Blinder expects a "hawkish pause": a hold, with a warning that more hikes could follow (Yahoo Finance). That's the setup to watch for.
2:00 p.m. ET: the decision.
2:30 p.m. ET: Warsh's press conference. This is where a December hint, if there is one, will show up.
After the close: Alphabet and Microsoft report earnings.
Crypto has been trading as a risk asset, and higher rates are a headwind for risk assets. A hold that sounds relaxed and a hold that sounds like a warning are two different days.
Bitcoin: a chip rally, then a slip
Bitcoin closed Tuesday (8 p.m. ET) at $80,800, up 1%. On the day it ranged from $79,366 to $81,182 (Coinbase).
Then Asia's chip stocks took over. South Korea's Kospi jumped nearly 7% after chipmaker SK Hynix reported a very large profit jump (CoinDesk). Bitcoin followed, touching $81,694 at 4 a.m. ET.
It didn't hold. In the 8 a.m. hour it slid about $550 to around $80,670. I can't point to one cause. US trade data came out at 8:30, and the goods deficit was wider than expected, $134.9B against $130.2B (investingLive), but I can't tie the move to it.
Ether did the same, to $2,384 and back to about $2,338.
Wall Street: chips led
S&P 500: +0.6% to 7,722.60.
Nasdaq Composite: +1.18% to 26,477.81.
Dow: +0.03% to 52,377.57.
Chip index (SOX): +3.6%. Boeing fell 10.7% on a slower 737 Max ramp (HDFC Sky).
The data was strong. Consumer confidence jumped to 91.7, against a forecast near 81 (Conference Board). Durable goods orders rose 1.8% in September, against 1.7% expected.
Strong data and a Fed that's thinking about December go together. The 10-year Treasury yield is back at 5.00% (Trading Economics).
Oil slipped on Tuesday: Brent settled at $113.88 and US crude at $99.90, as Iran's officials talked about conditions for ending the conflict. This morning Brent is back near $115, up about 1.2%. Qatari mediators gave Iran a new draft deal, and Iran's answer is expected by the end of the week. A senior Iranian official said Qatar's ideas are unacceptable, so the signals are mixed (investingLive). Gold is near $4,054.
ETFs: two days of inflows
US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $176.0M on Tuesday: $151.5M into BlackRock's IBIT and $24.5M into Fidelity's FBTC (TFTC). Add Monday's $110.3M and that's $286M in two days.
October's total is now −$26.1M, down from −$202.1M on Monday. That's close to flat for the month, after last week's $773M of outflows.
I don't have a confirmed Ether ETF number for Tuesday.
Altcoins: memecoins up, DeFi mixed
Pepe jumped about 9%. Arkham Intelligence linked wallets to Justin Sun holding about $51M of the token (CoinDesk).
Zcash rose about 8% to around $1,320, after Monday's selloff.
DeFi was roughly flat, up 0.6% on the CoinDesk DeFi index. The CoinDesk 80 gained 0.9%.
The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season index is 60 out of 100, up from 53 on Monday. It's a reading, not an altseason call. The ETH/BTC ratio is about 0.0290, unchanged from yesterday.
Robinhood, a read on retail crypto, reported crypto revenue of $120M, down 55% from a year ago but above Wall Street's $114.1M forecast. Crypto trading volume fell 38%. The stock fell about 5% after hours (CoinDesk).
A warning about coins held on exchanges
Shares of Datavault AI fell almost 50% on Tuesday, to $0.067. A filing says the company hasn't been able to withdraw bitcoin from the Biconomy exchange since June, and that it will restate its results. The restatement cuts reported assets by $92.2M at the end of 2025 and by $49M in June 2026.
The coins were credited to its exchange account through off-chain transfers, so they were balances on an exchange, not coins in its own wallet. CoinDesk contacted Biconomy and hadn't heard back.
This is one company and one exchange. The lesson is a general one: a balance on an exchange is a promise, not a wallet you control.
Also on the radar
Stablecoin supply keeps sliding. USDT and USDC together are $252.4B, down about $2.5B in a week and from $255.2B last Thursday (DefiLlama). It's a slow leak, and it's worth watching.
Zcash's co-founder proposed ending the 8% grants share of new coins, citing a treasury of about $125M (CoinDesk).
The Israeli election results are uncertain, which adds to Middle East risk (Trading Economics).
Market dashboard
BTC | $80,800 (Tuesday 8 p.m. ET close) · +0.99% · about $80,670 at 8:40 a.m. ET Wednesday |
ETH | $2,347 (Tuesday close) · +1.15% · about $2,338 at 8:40 a.m. ET Wednesday |
Funding rate (OKX, 8h) | BTC +0.0100% · ETH +0.0098% (small, positive) |
Liquidations (24h) | $184M, all crypto (CoinDesk, Wednesday morning, up 38%) · BTC $56M, ETH $46M |
Open interest | OKX BTC perps $2.50B (30,998 BTC) · −5.1% vs Tuesday morning |
BTC ETF flow | Tuesday +$176.0M (TFTC) · October −$26.1M |
ETH ETF flow | — (no confirmed number) |
Stablecoins (USDT + USDC) | $252.4B · 7-day −$2.5B |
Whale line | No new confirmed wallet move |
Fear & Greed (alternative.me) | 51 (neutral) · Tuesday 48 |
DXY · US 10Y · Brent · Gold | about 102.3 · about 5.00% · about $115 · about $4,054 |
Open interest is the total value of futures contracts still open. It fell about 5% since yesterday, so some of Monday's built-up positions have been closed.
Today and this week (ET)
Already out, 8:30 a.m.: the goods trade deficit ($134.9B vs $130.2B expected) and wholesale inventories (+0.6% vs +0.5%).
9:45 a.m.: the Bank of Canada decision. The rate is 2.25%.
2:00 p.m.: the Fed decision. 2:30 p.m.: Warsh's press conference.
After the close: Alphabet and Microsoft earnings.
Thursday, 8:30 a.m.: third-quarter GDP (estimate 3.2%, prior 2.2%), September PCE inflation (prior 3.4% year over year, core 3.0%) and jobless claims (estimate 196,000). The ECB decides at 9:15. Coinbase and Strategy report after the close.
Friday, 8:30 a.m.: the employment cost index. The Deribit options expiry is at 4 a.m. ET.
Saturday, Oct 31, 8 p.m.: October's close. The month opened at $83,556.
Sunday, Nov 1: US clocks go back one hour. Tuesday, Nov 3: US midterm elections.
Today's takeaway
The Fed is the whole day. Bitcoin has climbed from the bottom of the $79,255 to $80,859 box to $81,694 and given part of it back.
The line below is the weekly open, $80,053. The lines above are $81,694, today's high so far, then $82,007 and $82,313. I wouldn't read anything into the first 15 minutes after 2:00 p.m.
Yesterday's result: the "relief" branch was the one that played out. The trigger fired late Tuesday, the first target was hit, and the second one wasn't.
Today in Premium:
The plan for 2:00 p.m. and the days after. What happens if Warsh hints at December, and what happens if he doesn't?
27 BTC key levels, each with its source, including today's high so far.
ETH after $2,294: which cited levels sit above and below.
Options and funding check: the skew that collapsed this week, and the $12B Friday expiry.
🔒 Scenario C: BTC hourly close below $8█,███ with a hawkish December hint → next zone $7█,███–$7█,███
Premium readers get all of this below 👇
Tuesday's plan had three branches. A was "relief" (a calm Fed backdrop and an hourly close above $80,859). B was "range" (between $79,255 and $80,710, wrong on a daily close under $79,107 or above $81,081). C was "break lower" (a hawkish hint, an AI scare or a Brent jump, plus an hourly close under $79,255).
A · relief: it was the live branch. The first hourly close above $80,859 came in the 11 p.m. ET hour on Tuesday, at $81,038.
A · targets: one of two. $81,081 was reached (the Tuesday high was $81,182, and the Wednesday high so far is $81,694). $82,007 was not. The best hourly close was $81,436.
A · "wrong if" (back under $80,000 on an hourly close within a day): not triggered. The lowest completed hourly close since was $80,755.
B · range: broken on the upside. The high of $81,694 was $984 over the top edge. The "wrong if" didn't fire, since Tuesday's daily close of $80,800 was inside the limits.
C · break lower: not triggered. The lowest hourly close was $79,516 (the 2 a.m. hour on Tuesday), $261 above the trigger. The Fed condition is still ahead of us.
ETH: first target hit. The plan's A zones were $2,340, then $2,408. ETH reached $2,384 (Coinbase). It didn't reach $2,408.
The pre-Fed lines: "an hourly close above $81,081 before Wednesday 2:00 p.m." fired at 4 a.m. ET. The next zones, $82,007 and $82,313, were not reached.
The drivers: the AI trade was on my list, and it was the driver, but the leg came from Asia: Kospi +7% on SK Hynix's earnings. Brent fell on Tuesday and rose again on Wednesday. Open interest, which I flagged as +9%, has since fallen 5%.
What we got wrong: I treated the $1,600 box as the story, and it broke upward within a day. I also said consumer confidence had no consensus I could find. The reading was 91.7 against a forecast near 81, which was a big beat, and it pushed yields back to 5%.
What we learned: a range ahead of an event can break before the event. I'll keep writing the "box" as a map, not a prediction, and add the Asian session to the driver list, because it now moves crypto before the US wakes up.
27 BTC levels, each with its source.
BTC, above:
$86,996: the Oct 5 high (Coinbase daily candle).
$85,000: a horizontal barrier in FXStreet's technical note (AI-assisted, Oct 16), and the focus of October 30 call trading (CoinDesk).
$84,856: the Oct 21 high (Coinbase).
$83,556: October's open (Coinbase).
$82,500: the level CoinDesk says Bitcoin must reclaim. CoinDesk says a daily close above it could signal the recovery is gaining strength (Oct 28).
$82,313: the average cost basis of the spot ETFs (Glassnode, via CoinDesk, Oct 23).
$82,007: last week's open (Coinbase).
$81,694: today's high so far, the 4 a.m. ET hour (Coinbase).
$81,182: Tuesday's high (Coinbase).
$81,081: the Oct 20 low (Coinbase).
BTC, the middle:
$80,859: Sunday's high (Coinbase).
$80,790: the Oct 22 low (Coinbase).
$80,710: Monday's high (Coinbase).
$80,694: the Oct 16 low (Coinbase).
$80,494: Tuesday evening's low, 9 p.m. ET hour (Coinbase).
$80,053: this week's open (Coinbase).
$80,000: the psychological level, and the largest put cluster for the October 30 expiry (Crypto.com).
BTC, below:
$79,664–$79,676: the SuperTrend level (FXStreet, Oct 19) and the Oct 15 low (Coinbase).
$79,366: Tuesday's low (Coinbase).
$79,255: Monday's low (Coinbase).
$79,107: the Oct 24 low, the weekend's floor (Coinbase).
$79,000: October 30 options max pain on Deribit (CryptoTicker, Oct 17, so eleven days old). Other sources put it between $76,000 and $78,000, so treat it as a rough map.
$78,661: the 61.8% retracement of the move from the August 2024 low to the October 2025 high (FXStreet, AI-assisted, Oct 16).
$78,000: a large bitcoin put spread flagged by Derive targets it (CoinDesk, Oct 16).
$77,128: the 100-day EMA (FXStreet, Oct 19).
$75,968: the 200-day EMA (FXStreet, Oct 19).
$75,000: a liquidation cluster flagged by Glassnode (Oct 7).
ETH:
$2,781 and $2,636: the next hurdles above (FXStreet, Oct 24).
$2,600: FXStreet's upside target (Oct 19).
$2,548 and $2,538: a horizontal barrier and the 20-day EMA (FXStreet, Oct 16–24).
$2,470: the 20-day and 50-day EMAs, per FXStreet's Oct 24 note.
$2,408: the Oct 19 weekly open (Coinbase).
$2,384: today's high so far (Coinbase).
$2,361: Tuesday's high (Coinbase).
$2,357: the Oct 22 low (Coinbase).
$2,327 and $2,325: this week's open and the Oct 18 low (Coinbase).
$2,313 and $2,311: the Oct 14 low (Coinbase) and ETH's realized price, the on-chain cost basis (FXStreet, Oct 24).
$2,294: Tuesday's low (Coinbase).
$2,290 and $2,276: Monday's low and the Oct 24 low (Coinbase).
$2,205, $1,972 and $1,828: deeper supports if $2,311 breaks (FXStreet, Oct 24).
These are conditional scenarios, not predictions or buy/sell calls. A "break" needs an hourly close, not a wick. A close within about 0.1% of a trigger is a yellow light: check the next hour. I'm writing this at 8:45 a.m. ET, before the decision, so the Fed outcome is an input here, not a known fact.
Where BTC starts: near $80,670, between this week's open of $80,053 and today's high of $81,694. ETH starts near $2,338.
The drivers:
The Fed, 2:00 p.m., and Warsh at 2:30. A hold is priced. The question is December.
Alphabet and Microsoft after the close, and the AI trade. Chips rallied again overnight.
Iran. Brent near $115. Iran's answer to the Qatari draft is due by the end of the week. Strikes are possible after Nov 3.
Thursday's GDP and PCE, then Coinbase and Strategy earnings after the close.
The weekly open at $80,053 below, and $81,694 and $82,007 above.
A · Relief: a relaxed Fed and good tech results, and BTC makes an hourly close above $81,694.
BTC: $82,007 → $82,313 → $82,500 → $83,556.
ETH: $2,384 → $2,408 → $2,470.
This scenario is wrong if: BTC clears $81,694 but falls back under $80,694 on an hourly close within a day.
B · Range: a hold with a balanced tone, BTC between $80,053 and $81,694.
BTC: $80,053 to $81,694, with $80,694 and $81,081 inside.
ETH: $2,327 to $2,384.
This scenario is wrong if: BTC has a daily close (8 p.m. ET) under $79,255 or above $82,007.
C · Break lower: a hawkish December hint, weak tech results or a Brent spike, and BTC makes an hourly close under $80,053.
BTC: $79,664–$79,676 → $79,366 → $79,255 → $79,107 → $79,000.
ETH: $2,327 → $2,294 → $2,276.
This scenario is wrong if: BTC slips under $80,053 but the daily close is back above $80,694.
If it's a near-miss. An hourly close between $79,975 and $80,130 is a yellow light, not a break. Check the next hour before treating $79,664 as live.
After the Fed. The first 15 to 30 minutes after 2:00 p.m. are noise. The press conference at 2:30 is where the tone comes from. If Warsh signals a December hike, I'd treat C as more likely. If he leaves December open, A or B are more likely. If the market already priced the hawkish version, a hold can still lift price. I'd wait for the 4 p.m. stock close and the 8 p.m. BTC close.
Combinations: a relaxed Fed plus strong Alphabet and Microsoft results is the cleanest A. A hawkish Warsh plus weak results is the cleanest C. A mixed result is B. Thursday's GDP and PCE can undo whatever Wednesday did, and Friday's expiry adds its own pull, so I wouldn't treat tonight as the end of it.
Before the decision, in both directions:
If BTC closes an hour above $81,694 before 2:00 p.m., then the next zones are $82,007 and $82,313. A hawkish tone from Warsh would turn $82,000 back into a ceiling.
If BTC closes an hour under $80,053 before 2:00 p.m., then the next zones are $79,664 to $79,676 and $79,366. A bounce would need to reclaim $80,694 first.
DVOL is about 37.5 on Deribit this morning, a touch under Tuesday's 37.7. That's low for a day with a Fed decision, GDP and PCE this week. CoinDesk says the one-week put-call skew (how much more puts cost than calls) fell below 1% from nearly 10% a week ago. Short-dated downside hedging has mostly gone. The one-, three- and six-month skews still show a put bias.
The most-traded options over 24 hours were the $65,000 put expiring Oct 30 on the BTC side, and the $3,400 call expiring Oct 29 on ETH (CoinDesk). The $65,000 put is a deep hedge, not a forecast. The data doesn't say who was buying or selling.
Funding (OKX, 8h): BTC +0.0100%, ETH +0.0098%. CoinDesk's market-wide figures were 0.0090% and 0.0079%, against a 0.01% baseline. That's close to neutral. Oil perpetuals have negative funding, which means shorts are paying longs in that market.
Open interest: OKX BTC perp open interest is 30,998 BTC ($2.50B), down 5.1% from 32,655 on Tuesday morning. Market-wide futures open interest rose 1.3% to about $140B, and liquidations were $184M, with $56M in BTC and $46M in ETH (CoinDesk).
Next big expiry: Friday, October 30, 4 a.m. ET. Estimates run from about $11.7B (Crypto.com) to $12.2B (CryptoTicker, Oct 17, with max pain at $79,000). The biggest put cluster sits at $80,000, which is right where BTC is. Max pain is a positioning measure, not a forecast.
Whales: no confirmed wallet move. The one item to note is Datavault: an exchange-held balance it can't withdraw, which isn't a wallet move but is a reminder to check where coins sit.
What I'm watching
2:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.: the decision, then Warsh on December.
Whether $81,694 and $80,053 hold as the day's edges.
Alphabet and Microsoft after the close, and Asia's chip stocks tonight.
Iran's answer to the Qatari draft, and Brent against $115.
Thursday's GDP and PCE, and the Coinbase and Strategy earnings.
Tomorrow's ETF number: three inflow days in a row, or a pause?
The next scorecard is tomorrow's edition.
— Pro Swing Trader
This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a buy/sell signal.
Sources: Coinbase Exchange candles – prices, opens, highs and lows · CoinDesk – Bitcoin rebounds above $81,000 as Asian chip rally spills into crypto · CoinDesk – Bitcoin nears $81,000 ahead of Fed decision · CoinDesk – Bitcoin drops below $80,000 as Fed meeting begins · CoinDesk – Kospi surges 7% as SK Hynix earnings fuel AI rebound · CoinDesk – Datavault AI plunges 50% · CoinDesk – Robinhood's crypto revenue falls 55% · CoinDesk – Zcash grants proposal · TFTC – BTC ETF flows, October 2026 · HDFC Sky – Nasdaq jumps 1.18% as chips rally · Morningstar/PR Newswire – US consumer confidence increased in October · investingLive – crude oil and US-Iran deal hopes · investingLive – US goods trade balance · Trading Economics – Brent · Trading Economics – US 10-year yield · Trading Economics – gold · CoinDesk – Crypto Week Ahead · OKX – funding and open interest · DefiLlama – stablecoins · Deribit – DVOL · alternative.me – Fear & Greed · CryptoTicker – October 30 options expiry · FXStreet – technical levels (Oct 16 to 24) · CoinDesk – bitcoin put spread and options (Oct 16)