Bitcoin recovered to nearly $82,500 after President Donald Trump ruled out a U.S. attack on Iran before the midterm elections. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency remains down around 4% over the past week, while Ether has suffered a larger decline of 9%.

BTC rebounded from Thursday’s low of approximately $80,300 to about $82,500, although it remains roughly 4% below its price last Friday. ETH has weakened further, losing 9% over the same period to trade near $2,500.

The recovery followed a Thursday post on Truth Social in which Trump said the United States would not attack Iran ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Brent crude also retreated by around 1%, trading near $103 per barrel.

Smaller cryptocurrencies outperformed the leading assets during the rebound. The CoinDesk 80 index rose 2.2% since midnight UTC, posting gains more than twice those of the CoinDesk 5 index.

Despite the improvement, much of the market remained under pressure. The CoinDesk 100 was down 2.2% over 24 hours, while DeFi tokens fell nearly 4%. U.S.-listed Bitcoin, Ether and Zcash exchange-traded funds experienced outflows on Thursday, leaving XRP funds as the only crypto investment products to attract fresh inflows.

Investor concerns also intensified after Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake suggested that crypto holders adopt “bunker mode” to prepare for possible AI-related threats to wallet security. Coinbase cryptographer Yehuda Lindell challenged the warning, calling it “FUD,” or fear, uncertainty and doubt. He said there was no evidence that the elliptic-curve cryptographic foundations of Bitcoin and Ether had been broken.

U.S. equity futures moved higher following Trump’s announcement. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.83% since midnight, while S&P 500 futures advanced 0.44%.

Bitcoin derivatives show limited fresh leverage

Bitcoin futures open interest fell 1.9% over 24 hours to $27.1 billion, according to Coinalyze. The figure has remained relatively stable since Thursday afternoon’s liquidation event, even as BTC climbed back toward $82,500. This suggests traders have not significantly increased their leveraged exposure during the recovery.

Funding rates remain positive at approximately 5% annualized, with the projected rate slightly higher, indicating that traders holding long positions continue to pay to maintain their bets on rising prices. Deribit’s October 30 Bitcoin futures are trading at an annualized basis of around 7%.

Long positions continue to dominate Bitcoin derivatives trading. Coinalyze’s aggregate long-to-short ratio reached 1.85, meaning approximately 65% of tracked positions are bullish. At the beginning of the month, long and short positions were much closer to parity.

CoinGlass recorded $1.09 billion in cryptocurrency liquidations over the past 24 hours. Long positions represented $931 million, or about 85% of the total. Ether led with $345 million in liquidations, followed by Bitcoin at $266 million and Solana at $65 million. The largest single liquidation involved a $20 million ETH-USD position on Hyperliquid.

Altcoins deliver mixed performances

Starknet (STRK) surged 33% over 24 hours after the network revealed that it was considering separating from Ethereum to become an independent layer-1 blockchain. The proposal includes a goal of achieving full quantum resistance by 2027 but has not yet been approved. The announcement came days after Pudgy Penguins’ Abstract became the second Ethereum layer-2 network to shut down within a week.

Kaia (KAIA), a layer-1 blockchain formed through the merger of Kakao’s Klaytn and LINE’s Finschia, jumped 40% since midnight following a listing on Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Other layer-1 tokens also advanced, with Aptos (APT) gaining 12% and Cosmos (ATOM) and Polkadot (DOT) each rising nearly 10%.

Several of Thursday’s strongest performers subsequently gave up their gains. Algorand (ALGO), which had led the CoinDesk 100 with a 9% rise on Thursday morning, dropped 14% over 24 hours. Curve (CRV) fell 13% after previously advancing 11%.

AI-related tokens also lagged as new information about OpenAI’s revenue weighed on sentiment toward the sector. CNBC reported on Thursday that OpenAI had an annualized revenue run rate of $50 billion at the end of September, below the $68 billion figure widely reported the previous month. The disclosure coincided with the Nasdaq Composite suffering its largest single-day decline since mid-August.

The AI agent payments token Kite (KITE) and Venice (VVV) each lost approximately 9% over 24 hours and remained slightly negative since midnight UTC.

Meanwhile, Pyth Network (PYTH), an oracle token, gained 13% over 24 hours, placing it among the relatively few cryptocurrencies to post gains across both timeframes.