Bitcoin traded around $80,100 on October 29, 2026, down 1.4% since midnight UTC, after dipping as low as $79,600, according to CoinDesk. The crypto market decline landed on a morning crowded with catalysts: Samsung Electronics posted a record quarter and still saw its shares drop, Alphabet missed expectations, and the Federal Reserve held rates with two officials voting for a hike.
Each of those stories is a data point in the same trade. Tech earnings are carrying the AI buildout narrative, and rate expectations decide how much investors will pay for it. Our earlier report on the Nasdaq futures slide covered the first hours of the move. This piece pulls the numbers together and separates what reporters have confirmed from what traders are guessing.
One caution before the details. CoinDesk framed the drop alongside the Fed dissent and the two earnings reports, but no outlet has shown that those events caused the full crypto sell-off. The sections below treat them as coinciding events and say so each time.
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What Happened to Bitcoin and Ether on October 29
Bitcoin’s slide was modest by crypto standards. A 1.4% move from midnight UTC takes the price to roughly $80,100, and the intraday low of $79,600 briefly pushed it under the $80,000 round number that traders watch. Ether fared slightly worse, falling 1.7% to $2,325.48.
The $80,000 level is not new territory. Our October 26 bitcoin price comparison showed outlets quoting closes of $80,268 and $79,722 for the same session, a reminder that bitcoin has been chopping around this zone for days. Thursday’s dip, then, is a retest and not a breakdown from a rally.
Ether’s 1.7% loss against bitcoin’s 1.4% means the second-largest asset lagged by a small margin. That pattern fits a risk-off session, where traders trim higher-beta positions a little faster. It does not prove a rotation, and a three-tenths-of-a-point gap sits well inside normal daily noise.
Altcoins, AI Tokens and Memecoins Fall Harder
The sharper losses came further out on the risk curve. NEAR dropped 7.8% to $4.3914, the steepest fall in the CoinDesk data. Bittensor’s TAO lost 3.1%. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index slid 3.4%. CoinDesk’s own headline pointed to an AI-token slump, which makes sense: those assets trade partly on the same enthusiasm that drives chip and cloud stocks.
| Asset | Level on Oct. 29, 2026 | Move | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | About $80,100 (low of $79,600) | Down 1.4% since midnight UTC | CoinDesk |
| Ether (ETH) | $2,325.48 | Down 1.7% | CoinDesk |
| NEAR | $4.3914 | Down 7.8% | CoinDesk |
| Bittensor (TAO) | Not stated | Down 3.1% | CoinDesk |
| CoinDesk Memecoin Index | Not stated | Down 3.4% | CoinDesk |
Do the arithmetic and a clear gradient appears. NEAR fell about 5.6 times as far as bitcoin did. That ratio is our own calculation from the two published percentages, but it captures the usual crypto pattern: the smaller and more narrative-driven the token, the bigger the swing when sentiment turns.
Samsung’s Record Quarter and the 4% Share Drop
Samsung Electronics supplied the strangest headline of the day. The company reported record quarterly operating profit and its shares still fell 4%. Korea JoongAng Daily put the third-quarter operating profit at 107.4 trillion won, or $80.4 billion, and noted that the chip supplier outearned several of its biggest AI customers.
Our earlier breakdown of Samsung’s quarter walked through the memory angle in more detail. Here the focus is how the print reached crypto desks, because a Korean chipmaker’s earnings rarely move bitcoin on their own.
The Numbers Behind the Print
| Samsung Q3 2026 metric | Reported | Year over year | Versus forecast |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating profit | 107.4 trillion won ($80.4 billion) | Up 783.1% | Record quarter |
| Revenue | 195.3 trillion won | Up 126.9% | Below the 200.3 trillion won forecast |
| Net profit | 75.1 trillion won | Up 514.4% | Below the 87.4 trillion won FnGuide estimate |
| Share price reaction | Down 4% | Not applicable | Reported by CoinDesk |
By our arithmetic, the revenue shortfall was about 5 trillion won, roughly 2.5% below the analyst forecast. The net profit gap was larger, around 12.3 trillion won, or about 14% under the FnGuide estimate. Operating profit of 107.4 trillion won on 195.3 trillion won of sales also works out to a margin near 55%, though Samsung’s own presentation is the place to confirm that figure.
Why a Profit Record Still Counts as a Disappointment
A stock that has already priced in a boom cannot rise on a boom. Investors had pushed expectations for Samsung high enough that 195.3 trillion won of revenue, up 126.9% from a year earlier, landed under the 200.3 trillion won consensus. The market punished the gap and ignored the headline growth rate.
The 783.1% jump in operating profit implies the company earned roughly 12 trillion won in the same quarter a year ago. That base effect explains part of the eye-popping percentage. A year-ago figure that low makes any recovery look explosive, so traders focus on the distance to forecasts and not the year-over-year change.
What the Consensus Gap Tells Crypto Traders
Crypto desks care about this pattern because it shows how little room the AI trade has for small misses. When a company with record profit gets sold, leveraged buyers elsewhere get nervous. That chain of reasoning is plausible, but it remains a trader’s interpretation. The available reports do not confirm that Samsung’s shareholder-return policy or its revenue miss alone drove any crypto move.
Alphabet Misses and Nasdaq Futures Slide
Alphabet gave the US session its direction. Nasdaq-100 futures fell 1.1% after the company missed earnings expectations, and its shares reportedly dropped about 10% in premarket trading following the earnings call. Premarket numbers can shrink or grow by the open, so treat the 10% as a snapshot and not a close.
For developers and infrastructure buyers, the cash-flow side of the report matters more than the headline miss. We covered that angle in our Alphabet earnings analysis, including what heavy AI spending means for cloud customers.
| Market | Reported move | Trigger cited |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics shares | Down 4% | Record profit, but revenue and net profit under forecasts |
| Alphabet shares (premarket) | Down about 10%, reportedly | Earnings miss |
| Nasdaq-100 futures | Down 1.1% | Alphabet’s miss |
| Bitcoin | Down 1.4% | Coincided with the above and the Fed vote |
| Ether | Down 1.7% | Same |
| NEAR | Down 7.8% | Same |
Read down the column and the shape is familiar. Large-cap tech moved by single digits, and the crypto majors moved by low single digits, while thinly traded tokens moved the most. Bitcoin dropped less than Samsung’s shares did, which hardly looks like a market in panic.
Samsung Versus Alphabet: Two Misses, Two Different Problems
The two earnings reports look alike in the market reaction, yet they describe opposite sides of the AI economy. Samsung sells the hardware, and its problem is expectations. The company grew revenue 126.9% and profit 783.1%, then got sold because analysts wanted more. Alphabet buys and builds on that hardware, and its problem is the bill.
That split matters for crypto because the two stories pull sentiment in different directions. A supplier miss says demand is running hot but priced for perfection. A customer miss says the spending may not pay back fast enough. Traders who hold AI-linked tokens are exposed to both worries at once, which helps explain why NEAR fell harder than bitcoin.
Compare the size of the reactions and a ranking emerges. Alphabet’s reported premarket drop of about 10% dwarfed Samsung’s 4%. The Nasdaq-100 futures decline of 1.1% sat in between, and bitcoin’s 1.4% loss landed close to the index move. In short, bitcoin tracked the broad tech tape far more closely than it tracked either individual company.
The Fed Holds at 3.75% to 4%
On October 28, the Federal Reserve left the federal funds target range at 3.75% to 4%. Moneycontrol reported the decision passed 10 to 2 and that inflation remains elevated, which is why the two opposing votes leaned toward tightening and not cuts.
A hold is the least surprising outcome in the abstract, but the vote split changes the tone. Dissents in favor of a hike signal that part of the committee sees the current stance as too loose. Crypto, which gains when real yields fall, tends to hear that as a headwind.
Cook and Hammack: The Two Hawkish Dissenters
Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack cast the two opposing votes, and both wanted a quarter-point rate increase. Axios highlighted Cook’s dissent in its report on the meeting, and CNN Business covered both dissents live as the decision came out.
| Fed decision detail | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Date | October 28, 2026 |
| Federal funds target range | Held at 3.75% to 4% |
| Vote | 10 to 2 |
| Dissenter | Lisa Cook, Governor, favored a quarter-point increase |
| Dissenter | Beth Hammack, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, favored a quarter-point increase |
| Chair | Kevin Warsh |
Two dissents out of twelve votes is a small minority, and the committee still moved as a bloc to hold. The significance lies in direction. A split that leans toward hikes shifts the debate about where the next move could go, even though the hold itself was widely expected.
Warsh Gives No Signal for December
Chair Kevin Warsh did not signal what might happen at the December meeting, per CoinDesk. That silence matters for pricing. Without guidance, markets lean on incoming inflation and jobs data, and each release carries more weight than it would under a clearly telegraphed path.
We will not forecast the December decision here. Nothing in the reporting supports a call either way, and the committee has not committed to one. What can be said is that uncertainty on rates is one more reason risk assets looked soft on a day packed with earnings surprises.
The Hardware Angle: Suppliers Versus Their Customers
The most interesting line in Korea JoongAng Daily’s coverage is the comparison between Samsung and its customers. A chip supplier earning more than the cloud giants that buy its products shows where the AI spending lands. Memory and semiconductor makers collect the checks first, and the platform companies carry the capital burden.
That dynamic appeared a day earlier, when SK Hynix lifted chip stocks on Wall Street even as megacaps stayed flat. It also shows up in foundry economics, where TSMC is weighing a 20% CoWoS price hike for Nvidia-bound packaging.
For anyone buying hardware, the supply-side strength has a practical cost. Our report on enterprise SSD prices rising 23% to 28% in Q4 reflects the same tight market. Suppliers hold pricing power, and buyers absorb it.
Historical Context: Crypto on Earnings and Fed Days
Traders have treated bitcoin as a risk asset alongside the Nasdaq for several years now, and days that combine big tech earnings with central bank decisions tend to test that link. Today fits the template. A tech miss pressures growth sentiment, a hawkish tilt at the Fed pressures liquidity expectations, and crypto sits at the intersection.
This correlation is a habit and not a law. Bitcoin has gone its own way during stretches when crypto-specific news dominated, so a one-day move cannot settle the question. The stronger evidence is that the biggest declines hit tokens with explicit AI narratives, and that fits a tech-sentiment channel better than a pure rates channel.
One more point on timing. Asian trading hours carried Samsung’s report, European hours carried the digestion, and US premarket carried Alphabet. Crypto trades around the clock, so it absorbed each piece in sequence while stock markets only saw part of the story at a time. That is one reason crypto often shows the first reaction on a heavy news day, even when equity indexes later open calmer.
Market Impact for Builders, Miners and Hardware Buyers
A 1.4% bitcoin dip will not change anyone’s procurement plan. The sectors worth watching are the ones tied to AI hardware demand. Memory suppliers are posting record profits, so component prices are unlikely to ease soon. Cloud buyers should expect their providers to defend margins after a rough earnings day.
Crypto-native teams face a different set of concerns. Funding for AI-linked tokens depends on the same sentiment that hit Alphabet’s stock. If risk appetite stays weak, projects that lean on AI branding may find fundraising harder. We cover the broader hardware beat in our hardware section.
Miners and chip buyers sit in a particular squeeze. Mining hardware shares supply chains with AI accelerators, so record memory and foundry profits signal competition for the same capacity. If crypto prices keep sliding while component costs hold, margins for equipment buyers get thinner. This is a structural observation and not a forecast of any specific price, since none of the sources quantify mining costs.
Retail investors face a simpler lesson. One day of red candles tells them little. The more useful question is which number moved and by how much, and today the answer is a low single-digit dip for the majors and a high single-digit dip for the most speculative tokens. Position sizing, not headline reading, decides who gets hurt in a session like this.
Five Predictions to Watch
- Crypto will keep trading with tech on earnings days. Expect bitcoin to move in the same direction as the Nasdaq on heavy-report sessions, with smaller tokens swinging several times as far.
- AI tokens will stay more volatile than bitcoin. Today’s NEAR drop of 7.8% against bitcoin’s 1.4% is the template, and any further wobble in AI equities should show up first in these assets.
- Consensus gaps will matter more than record headlines. Samsung’s 4% drop on a record quarter suggests investors punish near-misses, so guidance and forecast revisions will carry weight in the next round of reports.
- Cook and Hammack will draw extra attention. Their public remarks will be read closely as markets look for hints of the committee’s direction. This is a prediction about attention, not about what the Fed will do in December.
- Component pricing will stay firm. With memory makers posting record profits, hardware buyers should plan for elevated prices through the end of the year.
What Is Confirmed and What Is Not
Confirmed by named outlets: the bitcoin and ether levels, the altcoin moves, Samsung’s third-quarter figures, Alphabet’s miss and the Nasdaq-100 futures drop, the Fed’s 3.75% to 4% hold, the 10 to 2 vote, and the identities of the two dissenters.
Unconfirmed: any claim that Samsung’s shareholder-return policy alone caused the crypto decline, any forecast of the Fed’s December decision, and any assertion that the earnings reports directly caused the whole crypto-market sell-off. The Alphabet premarket drop is also a reported figure that may have changed once the US session opened.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the bitcoin price today?
On October 29, 2026, CoinDesk put bitcoin around $80,100, down 1.4% since midnight UTC, after a dip to $79,600. Prices move constantly, so check a live feed before trading.
Why did crypto fall on October 29?
The decline coincided with the Fed’s 10 to 2 hold, Samsung’s earnings and Alphabet’s miss. Reporting links them in time but does not prove that any one event caused the entire move.
How much did Samsung earn in the third quarter?
Samsung reported operating profit of 107.4 trillion won ($80.4 billion), revenue of 195.3 trillion won and net profit of 75.1 trillion won. Revenue and net profit fell short of analyst forecasts.
Where are US interest rates after the October meeting?
The federal funds target range stayed at 3.75% to 4%, as the Fed held on October 28.
Who dissented at the Fed and why?
Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack both voted for a quarter-point rate increase. Moneycontrol linked the hawkish tilt to inflation that stays elevated.
Will the Fed raise rates in December?
Nobody knows yet. Chair Kevin Warsh gave no signal about December, and this article makes no forecast.
Which tokens fell the most?
NEAR fell 7.8% to $4.3914, the largest drop in the CoinDesk data. The Memecoin Index lost 3.4% and Bittensor’s TAO lost 3.1%.
