Position 2026-10-12: short (-0.25, confidence 0.53)

Our view for Monday, October 12 is a modest bearish lean on Bitcoin, held with only moderate conviction. BTC closed Sunday at about $83,680. That is up 0.9% on the day and about 8% above where it traded a month ago, but down 3.3% over the past week and about 34% below its $126,200 all-time high. Price has steadied after last week's selloff, but the institutional money that drives the medium-term trend is still leaving. That is why we lean slightly short rather than flat. The main reason is institutional flow. US spot Bitcoin ETFs had about $485M of net redemptions on October 7, led by IBIT, and another $244M on October 8, led by FBTC. Friday's small $21M inflow barely registered after that, and headlines now note that Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETFs are all in net outflow for October. US spot demand looks soft too: the Coinbase spot-demand gauge has stayed negative and fallen further below its weekly and monthly averages. USDC supply also shrank by about $1.0B over the week, which leaves less fresh stablecoin money ready to buy. On-chain and derivatives data point the same way, though more mildly. Active addresses are down about 6% over both the week and the month, on-chain transfer volume is about half what it was 30 days ago, and the MVRV ratio slipped 2.4% this week to about 1.54. About a third of supply is still held below the price it last moved at, so rallies can meet holders waiting to sell at breakeven. In options, the extra price of front-month 25-delta puts over calls on Deribit has widened to about 3.2 vol points, up from a 7-day average near 1.1. Traders are paying more for downside protection. Retail long/short account ratios on Binance and Bybit have risen above their weekly averages even as open interest measured in BTC has fallen. That suggests the latest bounce came more from shorts being forced out than from new buying. Price action is the main reason we are not more bearish. Bitcoin absorbed roughly $330M of forced long liquidations across October 7-8 and has since posted three steadier sessions, with Sunday trading between about $82,700 and $84,100. Over the last three days forced liquidations have hit shorts, not longs, and most of Sunday's short liquidations printed between $83,000 and $85,000. The 30-day trend is still positive, and Kalshi's price ladder for Friday's close is centred near $84,000. That resilience is why the bearish lean stays small. Macro and sentiment don't push the view either way. Equities are calm: the S&P 500 rose 1.2% on the week and the VIX sits near 14.8. But the UUP dollar-index fund is up 3.7% over the month and high-yield credit spreads are about 18% wider over 30 days, so the cross-asset picture roughly cancels out. The Fear & Greed index reads 69 (greed), while Google search interest in Bitcoin has dropped below its weekly average. The key near-term event is Wednesday's US CPI release, ahead of the October 27-28 FOMC meeting. A surprise there could easily override a lean this small.