Bitcoin Holds Near $78,000 After a Brutal Week — Saylor Calls the Next Bull Market as the Whitepaper Turns 18

A weekend of calm after a week of damage
Bitcoin entered November at about $78,005 on Binance spot, up 0.78% over the prior 24 hours, after a week that tested every holder's nerve. The weekly wrap tells the damage plainly: Bitcoin finished the seven days to November 1 at $77,874, down 3.1% on the week and 10.2% over 30 days, after trading a 7.0% range between a $81,692 high on Thursday, October 29 and a $76,360 low on Friday, October 30. Ether matched Bitcoin's weekly fall, down 3.1% to $2,261 and down 17.9% over 30 days. The total crypto market value stood at $2.61 trillion, down 2.7% since the October 25 wrap, with Bitcoin dominance at 59.9% and Ether holding 10.6%. Only 13 of the 50 largest coins finished the week higher, and the median move was minus 1.8%. The week's leader was Hyperliquid, up 15.3%. Sunday's calm, then, is not a recovery yet — it is a pause, and the market spent it deciding whether the sell-off is done.

The chart: compressed, oversold, capped from above
The technical picture explains why that pause feels so tense. Bitcoin's November 1 session was compressed: an intraday range of $77,262.72 to $78,068.00, well under half the 14-period average true range of $1,896.06, on Binance spot volume of $451.7 million. Every short- and intermediate-term moving average now sits overhead as resistance — SMA 7 at $79,050, SMA 20 at $80,919, SMA 50 at $81,975, EMA 12 at $79,639 and EMA 26 at $80,764 — forming a ceiling roughly from $79,050 to $82,000. The RSI at 37.70 sits in the lower half of neutral, approaching oversold without crossing it, while the Stochastic oscillator reads %K 19.58 and %D 15.67, both below 20, territory conventionally associated with exhausted selling. Binance Futures open interest stood at about $7.45 billion notional, down 0.91% over 24 hours. In plain terms: sellers look tired, but buyers have not yet reclaimed a single key average. The next committed move, in either direction, will have to break that ceiling or the $77,239 lower Bollinger Band support beneath it.

Saylor's bull-market call — and the 200-week test
Into that stalemate stepped one of Bitcoin's loudest voices. Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor argued that the next Bitcoin bull market has already started, kicked off when the price bounced off its 200-week moving average after hitting its bear-market bottom in late June. The numbers behind the claim are specific: the June 30 low of $58,525 closed 6.5% below that 200-week average, near where prior bear markets have bottomed, and profit takers now outnumber loss takers by 4 to 1. Saylor's longer clock is the halving: the next one arrives in early April 2028, and past pre-halving rallies have lasted 400 to 518 days and often gained 100% or more, putting the run-up's likely starting point sometime between early November 2026 and February 2027. Sceptics will note the first piece of evidence rests on price action alone, and that a bull-market call made while Bitcoin sits below every short-term average is a claim about structure, not momentum. But the argument matters because it reframes the week: not as the start of a new bear market, but as the shakeout before a halving-cycle advance.

Eighteen years on, an institutional asset
The timing of the debate is fitting. October 31 marked 18 years since the Bitcoin whitepaper appeared on October 31, 2008, and the asset it described now looks very different from the experiment it was. US spot Bitcoin ETFs hold approximately 1.6 million BTC, making them a major channel for institutional exposure, and figures cited in weekend coverage put nearly $800 million in Bitcoin exposure linked to UAE sovereign funds during the third quarter. Bitcoin's market capitalisation stands at approximately $1.57 trillion despite trading well below its 2025 record. The challenges named in the anniversary coverage are real and long-term: the block subsidy fell to 3.125 BTC in April 2024 and drops to 1.5625 BTC at the 2028 halving, squeezing mining economics, while quantum computing poses a future question for Bitcoin's cryptographic systems. Eighteen years in, Bitcoin is no longer judged as an idea — it is judged as an institutionally held asset with real costs, real holders and real overhead resistance at $79,000 to $82,000.

What to watch next
Three checks decide whether Saylor's call or the moving averages win. First, does Bitcoin reclaim $79,050 and then $80,919 — the SMA 7 and SMA 20 — on rising volume, or does it get rejected there again? Second, does the week's breadth improve — more than 13 of the top 50 coins higher, and the median move back above zero? Third, does the market's calm survive the week's real calendar — ISM manufacturing Monday, US midterms Tuesday, ADP and ISM services Wednesday, and the October jobs report Friday — without another leg down? Sunday's smaller movers hint at life returning: Lighter's LIT token jumped about 18% to $3.19 in the session. But one altcoin's jump is not a market recovery. The bull-market case now has to prove itself on the chart, not just in an interview.

FAQ
Where is Bitcoin trading? About $78,000 on November 1 — $77,874 in the weekly wrap, $78,005 on Binance spot at the start of the month, up 0.78% over 24 hours.
How bad was the week? Bitcoin fell 3.1% on the week and 10.2% over 30 days; Ether fell 3.1% on the week; the total market fell 2.7% to $2.61 trillion.
What is Saylor's bull-market argument? That the bull run began at the bounce off the 200-week moving average after the June 30 low of $58,525, with profit takers now outnumbering loss takers 4 to 1, ahead of the April 2028 halving.
What is capping Bitcoin technically? A ceiling of moving averages from about $79,050 to $82,000, with support near the $77,239 lower Bollinger Band.
Why does the whitepaper anniversary matter? It marks 18 years since October 31, 2008, with Bitcoin now institutionally held — US spot ETFs hold about 1.6 million BTC — but facing mining-economics and quantum questions.

Read more on Zimbuck: https://zimbuck.com/pages/zimbucknews and join the discussion at https://zimbuck.com/groups/zimbuckmarketnews. Related reading on the site: the earlier Bitcoin coverage in the Bitcoin category.

This article is market news and general information only, not financial advice.