Bitcoin recovered to $82,000 on Friday as cryptocurrency markets bounced back from Thursday’s late-session lows. President Donald Trump’s statement that the U.S. would not launch an attack on Iran before the midterm elections helped ease concerns about an immediate military escalation.
Trump said Washington would refrain from striking Iran ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post published at 12:17 p.m. ET.
He described negotiations with Iran as “productive” while emphasizing that the U.S. blockade would continue “in full force and effect.”
Bitcoin’s decline appeared to lose momentum around $80,300 after Trump’s announcement, allowing the cryptocurrency to gradually climb back to $82,000. Other major digital assets followed a similar pattern, with Ether, XRP, Solana and several altcoins recovering some of their Thursday losses.
Oil prices and geopolitical tensions triggered the sell-off
The market downturn began roughly a day earlier as concerns grew over a possible renewed military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, pushing crude oil prices higher.
Axios reported on Oct. 7 that the Pentagon had directed U.S. Central Command to prepare for a possible resumption of major combat operations in Iran. Following the report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures climbed from $89 to $93.20 before retreating sharply after Trump’s Truth Social announcement. At the time of writing, crude futures were trading at $90.69.
Crypto experts question ‘bunker mode’ fears
Meanwhile, concerns about a potential “bunker mode” response, which contributed to Thursday’s market weakness, are facing resistance from several cryptocurrency security experts.
Bunker mode describes a precautionary process in which crypto holders move their assets to new wallet addresses whose public keys have never previously been exposed onchain.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake proposed the idea earlier this week. The strategy aims to reduce potential vulnerabilities if advances in AI-assisted mathematics weaken the elliptic-curve cryptography that protects Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions before quantum computers become powerful enough to break the encryption.
Coinbase chief cryptographer Yehuda Lindell dismissed the concerns as “FUD,” arguing that no evidence showed the long-standing mathematical assumptions behind elliptic-curve cryptography had been compromised.
Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi described the proposal as a “very sober call.” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin acknowledged that AI-accelerated mathematical advances pose a genuine concern but pointed to lattice-based cryptography, rather than elliptic curves, in discussing the potential risk.
Bitcoin price levels traders are watching
Market analysts are closely monitoring $81,000 as an important support level for Bitcoin.
“For investors, $81,000 is the immediate level to watch. Fresh purchases can be staggered instead of being committed in 1 trade, while high leverage is best avoided until Bitcoin recovers $83,300 and then $85,500 with stronger ETF inflows. A break below $81,000 could take the market towards $80,000 and subsequently the more important on-chain support near $77,200,” Vikram Subburaj, CEO of India-based Giottus exchange, told CoinDesk.
BitDelta, meanwhile, identified $82,000 as the next significant resistance level.
“A sustained reclaim of $82,000 with Ethereum above $2,500 and narrower altcoin losses would stabilize the setup. A break below $80,316 would increase downside risk,” Purvang Mashru, lead analyst at BitDelta India, told CoinDesk.
About The Author
More Stories
Bitcoin Holds Near $82,500 as Trump Rules Out Iran Attack Before Midterms
MARA Moves $81.1M in Bitcoin to Galaxy Digital as It Shifts Focus to AI
New Bitcoin Lending Technology Set to Launch With $500M in Commitments