Bitcoin entered the new quarter without breaking from its recent trading range, with BTC continuing to fluctuate between $82,000 and $85,000 after more than a week of limited directional movement.

A brief push above $85,000 on Wednesday followed a cooler-than-expected U.S. inflation report, which reduced market expectations for additional Federal Reserve rate hikes. The move quickly faded, however, as spot bitcoin ETF flows turned negative.

According to SoSoValue, U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $148.7 million in net outflows Wednesday. That ended a nine-day streak of inflows totaling $3.08 billion, the largest dollar-value inflow run recorded by the funds this year.

The deterioration in ETF demand had started before Wednesday’s outflows. Inflows reached almost $1 billion on Sept. 21 before declining during the following sessions. Bitfinex analysts said the market needs the pace of ETF purchases to accelerate again for bitcoin to push through overhead supply.

“Daily pace remains the key determinant for clearing overhead supply,” the analysts wrote.

Bitfinex’s Absorption-to-Emission Ratio, or BAER, has also fallen sharply. The measure compares ETF bitcoin purchases with the approximately 450 BTC mined each day. BAER dropped from 25.6x on Sept. 21 to 1.8x on Sept. 29.

The analysts estimate that roughly 1.39 million BTC sits at breakeven between $84,000 and $86,500. They said BAER would need to recover to around 5.0x, representing approximately $190 million in daily ETF purchases, to absorb that supply.

Macro Conditions Remain in Focus

Bitcoin’s next move could also depend on developments in traditional markets. Alex Kuptsikevich, chief analyst at FxPro, pointed to the continued selloff in bonds as a potential source of volatility across asset classes.

“The persistence of the bond sell-off is a very worrying sign, capable of triggering a sell-off across all markets almost overnight,” Kuptsikevich said in an email.

He said crypto has sometimes benefited when traditional markets come under pressure, but added that the timing of a potential shift from caution to panic cannot be predicted.

STX, NIGHT Lead Altcoin Moves

Several altcoins continued to outperform bitcoin despite its lack of momentum.

Stacks’ STX gained about 26% over 24 hours to roughly $0.39. The token’s advance came alongside the appointment of Stacks founder Muneeb Ali as CEO of Stacks Labs, as the project works to broaden the use of its bitcoin staking products.

Midnight’s NIGHT rose approximately 23% to around $0.04, extending gains from previous sessions. The privacy-focused token added about 7% since midnight UTC after climbing 21% on Wednesday.

ENA and NEAR also recorded strong gains, rising around 11% and 10%, respectively. Ethena’s ENA traded near $0.27 and was up more than 30% over the past seven days.

QNT gained roughly 9% to about $290 in some market snapshots, taking its one-week advance to more than threefold amid a volatile series of rallies and pullbacks.

Not all major altcoins followed the move higher. AVAX declined around 5%, while ICP lost roughly 4%, reversing part of Tuesday’s advances of 7% and 8.3%, respectively.

The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index gained 1% over 24 hours, while the Computing Select and CoinDesk 80 indexes added 0.3% and 0.2%. Other major sector indexes were slightly lower.

Derivatives Point to Limited Volatility

Bitcoin open interest fell to $20.9 billion from $21.8 billion, while funding rates remained close to 3% annualized across venues.

Deribit’s three-month annualized basis rose above 6% from less than 5%, indicating somewhat firmer demand for leveraged long positions.

Options trading also tilted toward calls, with the 24-hour call/put ratio showing 83% of activity on the call side, compared with a previous 66%/34% split. One-week delta skew narrowed to about 4% from roughly 15%.

The at-the-money volatility curve remained in contango, with front-end volatility around 29.5% and longer-dated volatility near 40% through mid-2027. The configuration suggests a relatively calm volatility environment, with demand for calls but limited premium being paid for upside exposure.

Coinglass recorded about $100 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with long and short positions accounting for roughly half each. Bitcoin, ether and other tokens represented $100 million, $51 million and $26 million in notional liquidations, respectively.

Binance’s liquidation heatmap identifies $84,800 as a notable level to watch should bitcoin attempt another upward move.