Bitcoin’s recovery is one crossover away from its first fully bullish stacking of the 50, 100 and 200-day moving averages since June 2025, a configuration traders read as confirmation that the three-month rally has real footing. The market has a habit of arguing about such signals, and part of that argument is warranted: past alignments have produced both major rallies and short-lived pops.
The token trades near $85,900 on Monday, up about 1% on the day, after a weekend push toward $87,400 ran out of buyers. The average picture underneath looks firmer than the tape above it. The 50-day average stands at $79,495, well above both of the two longer trend lines below it. The 100-day average sits at $79,493 and is rising toward the 200-day at $79,539. When it crosses, all three lines will be stacked in the order that defines a fully bullish trend structure.
The math behind the signal
Moving averages smooth price over chosen windows, so the comparison makes a blunt statement about momentum. When the short window outperforms the longer ones, the market is paying more for bitcoin today than its recent average price, and the everyday reading of that is an uptrend. A full stack, with 50 above 100 above 200, is the textbook confirmation traders look for before they crown a recovery as a real trend rather than a squeeze.
Vikram Subburaj, chief executive of India-registered exchange Giottus, put it plainly in comments made to CoinDesk. “That crossover would restore the order of 50-day above 100-day above 200-day for the first time since the previous alignment formed on June 24, 2025,” he said. “The latest signal confirms the recovery has endured.”
| Moving average | Level (Oct 5) | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 50-day | $79,495 | Above both longer averages |
| 100-day | $79,493 | Rising, about to top the 200-day |
| 200-day | $79,539 | Last in the stack to be cleared |
The rally underneath the lines
Bitcoin rose more than 40% during the third quarter to touch $87,000, a recovery that followed a first half in which the asset fell roughly a third and briefly dipped to $60,000 in February. What stopped the quarter strong was not a fresh cycle high but a gathering dollar problem: the DXY index climbed to an 18-month high above 102.5 on Monday, as euro weakness and rising US Treasury yields pushed financial conditions in the opposite direction of risk appetite.
Against that backdrop, the moving-average test is really a demand question. Glassnode’s latest post-payroll note on the market showed the chance of another quarter-point Fed hike at the Oct. 28 meeting fell from 66% on Sept. 28 to 22% by Oct. 2, after a weak US jobs report of 29,000 payroll additions and 4.2% unemployment. Bitcoin ETFs took in $102 million on Oct. 1, and revolving inflows into the ramp-up after the report are still being tallied. Spot and ETF turnover stands near $6.4 billion a day, close to the bottom of the range since the ETFs launched, so the market needs broader participation, not just futures positioning, to sustain the move.
What history says about full stacks
Alignments like this are not a reliable forecasting model. Past performance has varied widely. The attractively named golden cross configuration in late October 2020 launched two years of gains that took Bitcoin to records above $64,000, a caravan a whole generation of traders still talks about. One from early November 2023 doubled the price in about six months. Others did almost nothing: the June 2025 stack lasted 97 days and added only a few thousand dollars from around $106,000, while a shorter 2024 version fell away after twenty days and dropped roughly 10%.
Binance Research pushed back against the optimism from the other side this week, noting that Bitcoin’s 46.9% rebound from the July low of $57,800 does not by itself confirm a cycle bottom. Its historical study of seven comparable drawdowns found that four of five rebounds of similar size from shallow drawdowns later broke their cycle lows, and researchers called the result a base rate, not a forecast. Two independent technical readings, one bullish and one cautious, now sit over the same market.
Subburaj framed the risk directly. “The asset’s price behaviour afterwards will determine whether it becomes a sustained bull-market structure or another short-lived alignment,” he said. The actual test, in his words, is whether spot price keeps holding above the 50-day average during a correction rather than right here at the top of a range.
“The crossover strengthens the trend case, but it does not guarantee its continuation.” – Vikram Subburaj, CEO, Giottus
Derivatives keep betting on upside
Positioning under the market still leans bullish even as price chops in place. The 24-hour liquidation data showed $174 million cleared, a 28-72 split between longs and shorts, with a quarter of that concentrated in Bitcoin. Open interest sits near $22 billion, funding rates remain elevated and dispersed, and the options market is calling this a bullish setup with a put/call ratio as low as 87/13 on the day. That says dealers and desks still expect the market to grind higher, or at least are not paying for the downside.
The next few sessions decide it. Holding above the 50-day average, currently near $79,500, would validate the stack as it completes. Losing it after the 100-day crosses the 200-day would turn the signal into just another failed confirmation and hand bears the momentum narrative. Both are genuine possibilities in a market where the dollar, not crypto, is doing most of the pushing.