Bitcoin price prediction: $295 above the 100-day line, the level that decides

Analysis: bitcoin is trading at $77,626 on Friday morning, 3.2 percent below its level 24 hours earlier (CoinGecko, 11:43 a.m. German time). What is established: the daily low was $76,330, exactly $295 above the average of the last 100 daily closes, which by our calculation stands at $76,035. Our assessment follows further down. The next four trading days, with the US midterm elections on November 3, will decide whether this touch turns into a reversal or a breakdown.

Where things stand: $77,626 four days before the US election

October ends today, and it ends in the red. Bitcoin opened the month on October 1 at $83,565, peaked at $87,229 and fell as low as $76,330 on Friday morning. That makes a monthly loss of 7.1 percent. It is the fifth losing month of 2026, after January, February, May and June, and the first since June. All figures in this paragraph come from the daily candles of the Kraken exchange for the XBT/USD pair.

The range for the year is wide: bitcoin stood at $97,900 in January and at $57,740 in July. If you are looking for the longer arc, you will find it in our bitcoin price prediction, which sets out scenarios over months rather than days. For the next few days, something else counts: two numbers that have nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with the average of recent months.

The 100-day line at $76,035 and the $295 above it

A moving average is simply the mean of the most recent closing prices. By our calculation from daily closes up to October 29, bitcoin's 100-day line stands at $76,035 and the 200-day line at $73,101. Above, the shorter lines sit well over the price: the 50-day average is at $81,878 and the 20-day average at $81,597. Bitcoin is therefore trading below its short-term averages and above its long-term ones, which is the technical shorthand for a correction within an uptrend that is still intact.

Friday's daily low makes the situation especially sharp. $76,330 against $76,035 is a gap of $295, or 0.39 percent. Selling pressure touched the line but did not break it. As long as the daily close stays above $76,035, that counts as support held; a close below would be the first since August 19 on which bitcoin has fallen back beneath this average.

290 days below the 200-day line: what our measurement shows

We counted for ourselves how rare such a drop is. The basis is 721 daily candles from Kraken, from November 9, 2024 to October 30, 2026. From these, we can say for every day from May 28, 2025 whether the close was above or below its own 200-day line. The result: 293 of 520 daily closes were below it, or 56 percent. These days cluster, however, rather than being spread out.

Period	Duration	What happened next
October 17 to 22, 2025	3 daily closes	Return above the line, then another break
October 30, 2025 to August 18, 2026	290 daily closes	Low of $57,740 in July 2026
August 19 to October 29, 2026	72 daily closes	Price consistently above the 200-day line

The finding in one sentence: over the past two years, bitcoin was either below the 200-day line for months or above it for months, with only one brief interlude. That makes $73,101 the real dividing line for the medium term and $76,035 the outpost that falls first. Anyone looking for a prediction over weeks therefore should not measure against today's close, but against which of the two lines breaks first in the coming trading days.

What has changed since Thursday's prediction

On Thursday afternoon, in our prediction on the monthly expiry, we pointed to today's expiry date in the futures market and flagged the risk of a setback. At that point, at 15:15 UTC, bitcoin was trading at around $81,100. It has fallen 4.3 percent since then. The setback has therefore happened, and it was sharper than the range of the previous days.

Two levels from that article are now history. $79,121, the previous week's low, was breached on Thursday evening. $81,287, the start of the week, is now 4.7 percent above the price. New to the picture is the 100-day line, which on Thursday was still a good 6 percent away and has now moved to within 0.4 percent. That is the difference between a warning and a test.

The Fed holds at 3.75 to 4.00 percent, December is 82.6 percent priced in

The second reason for the weakness lies not in the blockchain but in Washington. On October 28, the US Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee decided to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.75 to 4.00 percent. The Federal Reserve statement says the committee decided to maintain the target range. The decision was taken by 10 votes to 2; Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack dissented because they wanted a quarter-point increase.

What matters for the prediction is not this decision but the next one. According to the CME FedWatch futures market indicator, the probability of a 25 basis point hike in December rose to 82.6 percent, while 16.9 percent expect a hold. A market that expects a further tightening by four-fifths is reluctant to pay premiums for assets without interest income. That is exactly the mechanism through which bitcoin depends on rate decisions: it is not the level of the rate that matters, but its expected direction.

On top of that, the September hike was the first since 2023. The rate cycle has therefore changed direction, in a year in which bitcoin is already trading 38 percent below its all-time high of $126,080. If you trade with leverage in this environment, you should know your liquidation threshold before the December meeting gets closer; our overview of the best crypto brokers shows which providers set which collateral requirements.

The November 3 midterms and the failed Clarity Act

On November 3, the United States elects a new House of Representatives and part of the Senate. For bitcoin itself an election changes nothing; for the rules around it, a great deal. The Clarity Act, which was meant to give digital assets a firm legal framework in the US, failed in the Senate on September 15 by 49 votes to 50; 60 votes were needed even to open debate. Since then, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been working with the powers they have without new legislation. The CFTC's comment period runs for 60 days from publication in the Federal Register on October 13, so it ends around mid-December.

Adam Lynch, Director of Equity Research at Charles Schwab, put it this way in a piece published by finanzen.net on October 22. He calls the current administration probably the most crypto-friendly so far and sees a shift in the majorities in Congress as a possible brake, but remains cautiously optimistic that a cross-party agreement is still possible. He expects progress on the regulatory side, not on legislation before the election. In the same piece he points out that bitcoin ETFs have taken in almost $60 billion since January 2024, but saw outflows in the month before his interview.

That is an assessment, not a price target, and it remains one. We report it because it explains the timing. Before November 3 there will be no decision that clarifies the legal framework, and after November 3 a count begins whose result may shape bitcoin's daily range for weeks.

How a moving average really works in trading

A line on a chart has no power of its own. What matters are the orders placed around it. Large addresses and automated trading systems place stop and buy levels where many others expect them too, and the 100-day average is one of those widely known places. That is why both directions converge on it at once: buyers betting on a reversal, and sellers whose hedges only trigger below it.

In practice this means two things. First, such lines often produce a move that dips briefly below and immediately returns, the so-called false breakout. A daily close therefore counts for more than an intraday low. Second, a genuine break accelerates the move, because the hedges are staggered. On Thursday evening this could be seen in the opposite direction: in the hour from 20:00 UTC, bitcoin fell from $80,744 to a low of $78,200, a drop of $2,544 in sixty minutes.

Three levels up and down, each with its rationale

For the coming trading days, this produces levels that come not from a model but from measured prices and averages. On the downside: $76,035 as the 100-day line, $76,330 as Friday's daily low and $73,101 as the 200-day line. On the upside: $78,667 as Friday's daily high, $81,287 as the start of the week and $81,878 as the 50-day line.

Level	Where it comes from	What a break means
$81,878	50-day line	Upside: October's correction would be worked off
$81,287	Weekly open, October 29	Upside: the hack week would be neutralized
$78,667	Daily high, October 30	Upside: first easing on the daily chart
$76,330	Daily low, October 30	Downside: the monthly low gets tested again
$76,035	100-day line	Downside: first close below it since August 19
$73,101	200-day line	Downside: return to the 290-day regime

The order is the real clue. Between the daily low and the 100-day line lie $295, between the 100-day line and the 200-day line $2,934, or 3.9 percent. The first break would therefore be tight, the second would have room. If you translate levels into an order, you should know this gap, because it decides how far a stop needs to be from the entry so as not to trigger at the tight spot.

Our assessment: the test is open, the environment argues against a quick recovery

In the editorial team's view, the December rate expectation weighs more heavily than the chart. In favour of that: an 82.6 percent probability of a hike according to CME FedWatch, two dissenting votes on the committee that wanted to raise rates already, and an October in which ETF flows reversed, according to Charles Schwab. Against it: the 100-day line is holding so far, the price is 6.2 percent above the 200-day line, and the 72 daily closes since August 19 have all been above it without interruption.

What follows from this: we consider a daily close below $76,035 in the coming trading days the more likely of the two tight scenarios, but see no evidence of a drop to $73,101 before election day. That is an assessment of the situation, not a recommendation to buy or sell. Bitcoin can lose every euro invested, and an assessment is no substitute for your own review.

Holding period and loss offsetting: what depends on the purchase date

For investors in Germany, a month like this has a side that does not show up on the chart. Private sales of crypto assets fall under private disposal transactions under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. What matters there is the holding period. If more than one year passes between purchase and sale, the gain is tax-free and a loss has no tax value. Within one year, the opposite applies: the gain is taxable and the loss can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year. We keep track of the status of the planned reform of this rule on our page on the crypto holding period.

This leads to a check that anyone can carry out today and that has nothing to do with a prediction. If you bought bitcoin in 2026 and are now in the red, you hold a loss that can still be offset in the current year. If you bought before November 2025, you hold coins whose gain or loss no longer counts for tax purposes. The purchase date is in your exchange's statement, not in your wallet, and it decides more money than a two percent price move.

One note for completeness: the exemption limit for private disposal transactions is €1,000 a year, and it is a threshold, not an allowance. If you exceed it by one euro, the entire gain is taxed. With several exchanges and wallets, a clean statement is therefore worthwhile before your tax return is due.

Bitcoin at $77,626: below $76,035 the recovery tips over

The situation translates into three steps to work through today.

1. Find the purchase date. Download your exchange statements for 2025 and 2026 and mark every position that is less than a year old. Only those losses can be offset. Which platform provides which statement is shown in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Note the daily close, not the low. In Europe, bitcoin closes the UTC day at 1:00 a.m. That value is what counts for $76,035, not the low around midday. If you want to watch fund flows in parallel, you will find the context in our guide to bitcoin ETFs for investors in Germany.
3. Prepare the offsetting. Set your 2026 gains and losses against each other before the Fed's December meeting brings the next push. We compare tools that read this from exchange statements in our overview of crypto tax tools.

(As of October 30, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)