Morning market report

Charlie Morning Market Report. October 25, 2026.

The overall crypto market is holding relatively steady in price terms, but the structure underneath shows clear stress, with forced closures of leveraged bets and continued institutional outflows from Bitcoin.

Bitcoin trades at $80,799, down 0.25% in the past 24 hours. 68% of leveraged traders are positioned for a rise, and those holding that view are paying an annualized fee of 8.3% to maintain the position. Leverage is not piling up aggressively at this moment, but over the last 24 hours more than $155 million worth of bullish leveraged bets on Bitcoin were forcibly closed, which adds selling pressure regardless of spot demand.

Ethereum sits at $2,361, down 0.91%. The crowd skew is even more one-sided, with 76% positioned for a rise and paying a 6.6% annual fee to do so. Around $132 million in bullish leveraged positions on ETH were forcibly closed in the last 24 hours, the second-largest forced unwind across the market today.

XRP is the one bright spot, up 1.39% to $1.3097. Still, 76% of leveraged traders are on the long side, paying a notably high 11% annual fee, and the market is actively forcing some of those bullish bets to close. The price gain is real, but the leverage environment around it is expensive and unstable.

SOL trades at $102.36, nearly flat at minus 0.32%. Like XRP, it carries an 11% annual fee for bullish leveraged positions, and forced closures of long bets are occurring. The scale is small compared to BTC and ETH, but the direction is consistent with broader market stress.

Flows and sentiment tell a cautious story. Bitcoin ETFs saw $137.9 million leave yesterday, the second consecutive day of net outflows, though the seven-day total still shows $223.9 million in net inflows, meaning the recent reversal is worth monitoring but has not yet erased the week's gains. Across all of crypto, over $455 million in bullish leveraged bets were forcibly closed in 24 hours versus only $81 million on the bearish side, a ratio that reflects a market caught leaning the wrong way. The Fear and Greed index sits at 54, technically neutral, though the market regime data points to a strong and broad downtrend with volatility compressed, which historically can precede sharper moves in either direction.

For today, watch whether the ETF outflow streak extends to a third day, as that would begin to shift the seven-day net flow picture meaningfully. The high annual fees being paid by bullish leveraged traders on XRP and SOL make those positions costly to hold, so monitor whether price can sustain gains or whether the fee burden accelerates further forced closures. We are also measuring internal heat scores for BTC at 0.64 and ETH at 0.56 on a scale where higher means more stretched, though these are measurements we track without a confirmed predictive edge, so treat them as context only.