VanEck Mid-October 2025 Bitcoin ChainCheck

Summary Global M2 growth continues to explain more than half of Bitcoin’s price variance, reaffirming Bitcoin’s role as an anti-money printing asset. Futures open interest peaked at $52B before cascading liquidations drove Bitcoin’s ~18% drawdown in early October. Bitcoin’s price made new all-time highs above $125K on October 6th before dropping to a low around $105K by the 10th, with its 30-day moving average up 2% on the month. As of early October 2025, futures leverage sat near its 95th percentile, with the cash collateral backing Bitcoin futures at record highs (~$145B). Bitcoin’s October pullback reflects a liquidity-driven mid-cycle reset. Leverage has normalized, on-chain activity is rising, and digital assets’ macro role continues to strengthen. Please note that VanEck has exposure to bitcoin. Three key takeaways for mid-September – mid-October: Liquidity Drives the Cycle: Global M2 growth continues to explain more than half of Bitcoin’s price variance, reaffirming Bitcoin’s role as an anti-money printing asset. Asian trading hours leading price discovery over the past year suggests that tightening regional liquidity is driving near-term volatility. Leverage Flush Creates Opportunity: Futures open interest peaked at $52B before cascading liquidations drove Bitcoin’s ~18% drawdown in early October. With leverage now normalized to the 61st percentile and prices near one-year lows relative to gold, we view this as a mid-cycle correction, not the start of a bear market. Onchain Activity Reflects a Maturing Market: Strong revenue-to-price correlations among L1s and sustained Bitcoin treasury accumulation point to Bitcoin’s maturation, underscoring the asset class’s growing importance in model portfolios. Chart of the Month Total Bitcoin Miner Debt ( USD Billions ) Source: VanEck estimates, FactSet as of 10/15/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. Bitcoin miners’ total debt has surged over the past 12 months from ~$2.1B in Q2 2024 to ~$12.7B in Q2 2025. Bitcoin mining is a challenging business; without continued investment in the latest ASICs, a miner’s share of the global hash rate deteriorates, resulting in a reduced pro rata share of the finite number of Bitcoin awarded daily. We refer to this dynamic as “the melting ice cube problem”. Historically, miners relied on equity markets, not debt, to fund these steep Capex costs. This stems from the fact that miners’ revenues are difficult to underwrite as they rely almost entirely on the price of Bitcoin, which is speculative. Importantly, equity tends to be a more expensive form of capital than debt. As we have covered extensively since Q3 2024, miners have progressively pivoted greater amounts of power from mining Bitcoin to supporting the energy-hungry AI/HPC data center business. In doing so, miners have secured more predictable cash flows backed by multi-year contracts. The relative predictability of these cash flows has enabled miners to tap into debt markets, diversifying their revenues from Bitcoin’s speculative and cyclical prices and lowering their overall cost of capital. What does this mean for Bitcoin’s network? Rather than being a threat to network hash rate, we think AI’s priority for electrons is a net benefit to Bitcoin. Bitcoin mining remains an easy way to quickly monetize excess electricity in remote or developing energy markets, effectively subsidizing the development of data centers that are designed with AI/HPC convertibility in mind. In addition, AI inference experiences cyclical demand over the course of the day based on human activity. A number of Bitcoin miners we have spoken to have reported that they are exploring ways to monetize excess electrical capacity when demand for AI inference is low. In doing so, for certain use cases, they may be able to offset or even eliminate costly components of backup electrical power systems such as diesel generators, which can cost as much as $4M/MW despite running only of the year, effectively internally capturing the value of curtailment that has proven successful in markets like ERCOT. While this remains conceptual, we think it represents a logical next step in the unique synergies between Bitcoin and AI that lead to greater efficiency in the use of capital, both financial and electrical. Bitcoin ChainCheck Monthly Dashboard and Highlights As of October 16th, 2025 30-day avg 30 day change (%) 1 365 day change(%) Last 30 days Percentile vsall-time history (%) Bitcoin Price $ 114,868 2 79 99 Daily Active Addresses 722,857 2 2 64 Daily New Addresses 310,903 0 6 57 Daily Transactions 472,824 -8 -24 75 Daily Inscriptions 52,908 -21 167 38 Total Transfer Volume ((USD)) $ 86,316,806,627 21 101 93 % Supply Active, last 180 days 24 4 22 38 % Supply Dormant for 3+ Years 43 -1 -6 90 Avg Fees ((USD)) $ 97,383.77 -6 -17 79 Avg Fees ((BTC)) 0.83971 -9 -53 56 Percent of BTC Addresses in profit 95 0 4 83 Unrealized profit/loss ratio 0.53 -1 5 73 Global Power Consumption (TWh) 205 15 68 100 Total Daily BTC Miner Revenues ((USD)) $ 52,671,544 -2 72 96 Total Crypto Equities' Market Cap * ((USD)) (MM) $ 345,355 18 159 100 Transfer volume from Miners to Exchanges ((USD)) $ 17,556,460 14 125 96 Bitcoin Dominance 58 -4 4 76 Bitcoin Futures Annualized Basis 9 18 12 58 Mining Difficulty ((T)) 147 10 63 100 * DAPP market cap as a proxy, as of October 19th, 2025. "All-time" data as of 6.8.23, not since index inception. 1 30-day change & 365-day change are relative to the 30-day avg, not absolute. Source: Glassnode as of 10/19/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. Bitcoin Price & Futures Annualized Basis: Bitcoin’s price made new all-time highs above $125K on October 6th before dropping to a low around $105K by the 10th, with its 30-day moving average up 2% on the month. The steep selloff was driven by a mix of macro risks such as developing U.S.-China trade tensions, high levels of futures open interest, and whale profit-taking, triggering a cascade of liquidations (margin calls) in perpetual futures markets. Futures borrowing rates averaged 9% over the last 30 days, 18% higher than the previous month, accompanied by highs in open interest prior to the crash (discussed in detail below). However, without a clear or ongoing “black swan” event in play, this looks more like a mid-cycle selloff than the start of a bear market. Global Power Consumption & Mining Difficulty: Bitcoin’s global power consumption (+7%) and mining difficulty (+10%) reached new all-time highs this month, reflecting ongoing mining fleet expansions and ASIC upgrades. Though AI-geared GPUs continue to displace Bitcoin mining ASICs located in key AI data center geographies, miners continue to gravitate towards low-cost power. Transfer Volume from Miners to Exchanges: Transfer volumes from miners to exchanges increased 14% this month versus only 2% in BTC price gains, reflecting miners monetizing their production instead of holding. We think this reflects the steep capex requirements faced by the increasing number of miner AI-pivots as well as de-risking amid price volatility. Total Crypto Equities’ Market Cap: The MVIS ® Global Digital Assets Equity Index (MVDAPP) ’s 30-day moving average rose 18% over the past month as miners such as APLD, IREN, and CIFR continued to be rewarded for pivoting scarce power assets toward meeting AI’s growing energy demands. What Drives Bitcoin’s Price: 3 Key Factors Allocating to Bitcoin, like most emerging asset classes, remains part art and part science. Yet three measurable factors have consistently explained much of Bitcoin’s price behavior over time: global liquidity, leverage, and onchain activity. Together, these forces provide investors with a practical framework for sizing and timing exposure to digital assets. 1. Global Liquidity BTC Price Correlates Highly with Global M2 Source: Artemis, FRED as of 10/10/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. Bitcoin’s price has long been tethered to the ebb and flow of global money supply. Since 2014, Bitcoin has exhibited roughly a 0.5 correlation (r² = 0.25) with total global M2 growth, meaning that changes in the availability of fiat currency liquidity have explained a meaningful portion of its long-term returns. While this relationship tends to weaken during short-lived shocks, such as COVID in 2020, the 2024 election, or the “Tariff Tantrum” of 2025, broader trends in monetary expansion continue to dominate Bitcoin’s cycles. A multivariable regression of the top five fiat currency supplies against Bitcoin price shows that changes in M2 explain more than half (r² = 0.54) of Bitcoin’s variance over the past decade. Since 2013, global liquidity across the top five currencies has roughly doubled from $50 trillion to nearly $100 trillion , during which Bitcoin’s price has increased over 700x . Among individual currencies, the euro M2 money supply remains the strongest explanatory variable (r = 0.69, t = 10) , highlighting Bitcoin’s growing role as a neutral reserve asset amid synchronized currency debasement. VanEck’s historical macro views align with this data. In March 2023, CEO Jan Van Eck said on CNBC that both gold and Bitcoin looked primed to enter a multi-year bull cycle as the Fed neared the end of tightening. In that framework, the firm’s thesis was that Bitcoin functions as “digital gold,” poised to benefit when banks showed weakness as liquidity was setting up to expand again amid looming rate cuts. When it comes to Bitcoin price discovery, regional market dynamics have shifted meaningfully over the past two years. As shown below, Asian trading hours now lead global BTC returns after lagging Western sessions earlier this cycle and in the 2020-2022 cycle. This year, we observed that Asia led the recent move higher through late summer and is now also leading the latest decline. This rotation may reflect tightening liquidity in Asian markets, as central banks in India and China defend their currencies at the expense of domestic money growth. This pattern is consistent with Bitcoin’s role as an ‘anti-money printing’ asset within global liquidity cycles. Annualized Average Hourly Returns of BTC By Trading Session Source: Glassnode as of 10/10/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. 2. Leverage BTC Price Correlates Strongly to BTC Futures Open Interest ((OI)) Source: Artemis as of 10/10/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. Leverage is both a driver and a consequence of Bitcoin’s monetization process. Since October 2020, nearly 73% of Bitcoin’s price variance has been explained by changes in futures open interest (t = 71), underscoring the reflexive relationship between speculative positioning and spot price. Periods of exuberant leverage have historically preceded corrections, while orderly deleveraging phases have marked attractive entry points. BTC Futures Open Interest ((OI)) Climbed 2.5x YoY Before Crashing in October Source: Glassnode as of 10/16/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. As of early October 2025, futures leverage sat near its 95th percentile, with the cash collateral backing Bitcoin futures at record highs (~$145B) . Open interest peaked at $52B on October 6th before falling to $39B on October 10th following an 8-hour, 20% BTC drawdown, a reminder of how margin calls can cascade through the system. Notably, leverage has never sustained levels above 30% for more than 75 days, suggesting a limit on sustained risk appetite. As of mid-October, Bitcoin’s futures leverage ratio is at the 61st percentile of its historical ranges over the past 5.25 years. At the same time, the composition of leverage has matured. Greater participation from institutions, miners, and ETF market makers has shifted activity toward regulated venues like CME, where longer-dated and hedging-oriented contracts dominate. Leverage remains a dual-edged sword, amplifying drawdowns but also reflecting growing confidence in Bitcoin as a financial asset. Against the backdrop of this month’s deleveraging event and Bitcoin prices reaching lows relative to Gold not seen since October 2024, we view the current market as a buying opportunity. 3. Onchain Activity 1 Year Correlation Blockchain Revenue with Token Price Source: Artemis as of 10/10/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein. While macro liquidity and market structure provide indicators of Bitcoin’s shorter-term cycles, which generally drive risk appetite across the broader crypto market, onchain fundamentals offer the clearest window into crypto’s real adoption. Across major networks, token prices have shown statistically significant relationships with the revenues their blockchains generate, evidence that usage and value are intertwined. Among large chains, Solana exhibits the strongest link between network revenue and token performance (r 2 = 0.71, t = 30) , while Binance Chain’s BNB shows the weakest (r 2 = 0.13) . The causal direction is complex: higher token prices catalyze more revenue-generating user activity, yet consistent fee generation reinforces long-term valuations. As chains’ app ecosystems mature, they offer new channels for activity, which can improve the relationship between price and onchain revenues. As the newest entrant on the six blockchains in the graph above, Sui’s network developments in DeFi and consumer gaming/NFT apps over the past two years most clearly demonstrate this relationship. For Bitcoin, onchain metrics like transaction volume and network fees remain less predictive of daily price moves than liquidity or leverage. However, they still serve as tangible proof of network health. We think Bitcoin—and to a lesser extent, Ethereum—are relatively disconnected from these fundamentals versus other blockchain networks due to their growing adoption as store-of-value monetary assets held by off chain treasuries and ETPs. Notwithstanding these factors advantaging BTC and ETH, sustained growth in onchain revenues and user activity provides the most concrete evidence of a blockchain network’s value proposition extending beyond speculation. Onchain metrics aside, while Bitcoin remains, as Jan van Eck described in 2023, “an eight-year-old child” in its adoption curve, its growing correlation with global liquidity and leverage suggests it is progressing from speculative asset to a macro hedge against fiat currency debasement. Today, Bitcoin is more akin to a teenager; though Bitcoin is growing up, we expect the mood swings to continue in the years ahead. Practical Takeaways for Investors With Bitcoin comprising ~2% of global money supply, we believe digital assets can play an increasingly important role in investment portfolios; arguably, owning less than ~2% Bitcoin or other digital assets is implicitly expressing a short position on the asset class. With fiat debasement accelerating in recent years, that is not a bet VanEck is willing to take. For these reasons, some of our Model Portfolios include exposure to digital assets. We advise systematic allocations within certain risk budgets that have portfolio manager discretion. Current Fact Sheets show Digital Assets allocations at 1.47% , 4.56% , and 6.08% across model portfolios. In our active strategies, we take a more targeted approach by searching for particular best ideas and buying max fear events. For example, our 3-factor view of Bitcoin helps inform our allocations to Bitcoin and other digital asset ETPs, as well as high-beta sectors like Bitcoin miners. These Bitcoin-informed investment decisions can be combined with allocations to crypto-adjacent sectors like data center, energy, and software companies in an effort to maximize Bitcoin cycles while providing defensive, lower-volatility differentiation. Disclosures Definitions Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator. It can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network without intermediaries. Ethereum (ETH-USD) A decentralized platform that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) using its native token, Ether. Solana (SOL-USD) A high-performance blockchain using Proof-of-History and Proof-of-Stake to support fast, low-cost dApps and decentralized finance. BNB (BNB-USD) The native token of the BNB Chain ecosystem (formerly Binance Smart Chain), used for gas fees, staking, and DeFi applications. Sui (SUI-USD) A high-throughput, low-latency Layer 1 blockchain designed for parallel transaction execution and on-chain asset management. Avalanche (AVAX-USD) A highly scalable smart contract platform designed for speed and low fees, supporting custom subnets and DeFi applications. S&P 500 Index is a stock market index of 500 of the largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. MVDAPP MVIS ® Global Digital Assets Equity Index (MVDAPP) tracks the performance of the largest and most liquid companies in the digital assets industry. This is a modified market cap-weighted index, and only includes companies that generate at least 50% of their revenue from digital asset services and products, such as exchanges, payment gateways, mining operations, software services, equipment and technology, digital asset infrastructure, or the facilitation of commerce with the use of digital assets. Risk Considerations This is not an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities, financial instruments or digital assets mentioned herein. The information presented does not involve the rendering of personalized investment, financial, legal, tax advice, or any call to action. Certain statements contained herein may constitute projections, forecasts and other forward-looking statements, which do not reflect actual results, are for illustrative purposes only, are valid as of the date of this communication, and are subject to change without notice. Actual future performance of any assets or industries mentioned are unknown. Information provided by third party sources are believed to be reliable and have not been independently verified for accuracy or completeness and cannot be guaranteed. VanEck does not guarantee the accuracy of third party data. The information herein represents the opinion of the author(s), but not necessarily those of VanEck or its other employees. An investment in a cryptocurrency exchange-traded product (“ETP”) or other digital asset investment vehicle is subject to significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. The value of digital assets, including but not limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, is highly volatile and you can lose your entire principal investment. Cryptocurrency ETPs are not registered investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “1940 Act”) and therefore are not subject to the same regulatory protections afforded to mutual funds or ETFs registered under the 1940 Act. Index performance is not representative of fund performance. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Investments in digital assets and Web3 companies are highly speculative and involve a high degree of risk. These risks include, but are not limited to: the technology is new and many of its uses may be untested; intense competition; slow adoption rates and the potential for product obsolescence; volatility and limited liquidity, including but not limited to, inability to liquidate a position; loss or destruction of key(s) to access accounts or the blockchain; reliance on digital wallets; reliance on unregulated markets and exchanges; reliance on the internet; cybersecurity risks; and the lack of regulation and the potential for new laws and regulation that may be difficult to predict. Moreover, the extent to which Web3 companies or digital assets utilize blockchain technology may vary, and it is possible that even widespread adoption of blockchain technology may not result in a material increase in the value of such companies or digital assets. Digital asset prices are highly volatile, and the value of digital assets, and Web3 companies, can rise or fall dramatically and quickly. If their value goes down, there’s no guarantee that it will rise again. As a result, there is a significant risk of loss of your entire principal investment. Digital assets are not generally backed or supported by any government or central bank and are not covered by FDIC or SIPC insurance. Accounts at digital asset custodians and exchanges are not protected by SPIC and are not FDIC insured. Furthermore, markets and exchanges for digital assets are not regulated with the same controls or customer protections available in traditional equity, option, futures, or foreign exchange investing. Digital assets include, but are not limited to, cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs, assets stored or created using blockchain technology, and other Web3 products. Web3 companies include but are not limited to, companies that involve the development, innovation, and/or utilization of blockchain, digital assets, or crypto technologies. All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest. As with any investment strategy, there is no guarantee that investment objectives will be met and investors may lose money. Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss in a declining market. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. © Van Eck Associates Corporation. Original Post Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.