Bitcoin Pushes to $84,000 as Solana Alpenglow Goes Live and Zcash Surges 13% on NU7 Upgrade

Bitcoin climbed to $84,000 on Wednesday, October 21, recovering from a retreat toward $81,000 earlier in the week and extending its streak of daily closes above $80,000 to at least 33 consecutive sessions. The move higher liquidated roughly $195 million in crypto short positions, while Asian technology stocks added momentum, with South Korea's Kospi gaining 3.7% and Taiwan's Taiex rising 1.4%. SpaceX earnings and falling yields also lifted risk assets broadly. Technical analysts flagged $83,600 as a key resistance level, with 13 of 15 moving-average indicators pointing bullish but 8 of 11 oscillators remaining neutral, and Glassnode identified $87,700 as the ceiling where late-2025 buyers are concentrated.

Zcash was the standout gainer in the session, surging roughly 12% to 13% to around $1,270 to $1,290 on Binance after developers locked in November 5 as the target activation height for the NU7 network upgrade. NU7 is designed to cut block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, a threefold improvement in throughput. ZEC short liquidations hit $780,000 across three exchanges in a single one-hour window, and the token is now up more than 148% year to date.

Solana activated Alpenglow on mainnet at epoch 1064, described as the most ambitious consensus overhaul since Ethereum's Merge. The upgrade targets transaction finality of roughly 150 milliseconds, down from 12.8 seconds, a reduction of approximately 99%. The launch adds a meaningful technical milestone for the network as Solana's exchange-traded products recorded a 12th consecutive session of outflows.

U.S. Bitcoin ETFs collected $526.6 million on Monday and an additional $23.16 million on Tuesday, bringing two-day inflows to roughly $550 million and five-day net inflows to $211.2 million. BlackRock's IBIT alone added $665 million in the recent stretch. Ether ETFs moved in the opposite direction, posting a $26.1 million outflow on Tuesday and $389 million in net outflows over five sessions. Strategy made another purchase of 334 BTC, bringing its total holdings to approximately 848,000 BTC. Bitcoin options open interest rose to $38.49 billion, with calls representing 59% of outstanding positions and Deribit's October 30 $95,000 calls leading volume.

Bitcoin's implied volatility is approaching its 2026 lows as traders wait for the Federal Reserve's October 28 rate decision. A trader in the options market bought 500 month-end $90,000 to $95,000 bull call spreads, while Wintermute moved $90.38 million in Bitcoin to three new wallets. Analysts at Coinpedia warned that a 20% drop in U.S. equities could drag Bitcoin toward a $63,000 to $75,000 support zone, while CryptoQuant noted that the S&P 500 and Bitcoin continue to show correlated weakness patterns.