Bitcoin Breaks Above $86,000 as ETF Inflows Recover and Short Liquidations Cascade

Evernorth, the Ripple-backed company building an XRP-focused digital asset treasury, has completed its merger with Armada Acquisition Corp. II, according to a regulatory filing. The deal clears the way for the combined entity to list on Nasdaq. No financial terms of the merger were disclosed in the filing. The completion comes as the price of XRP remains under pressure despite the Ripple-linked treasury vehicle's progress toward a public listing.

Metaplanet announced on October 5 that it acquired a net 1,000 BTC between July and September, the third quarter of its fiscal year ending December 2026, bringing its holdings to 44,000 BTC. According to BitcoinTreasuries, which tracks corporate Bitcoin holdings, the company is now the world's second-largest listed corporate holder after US-based Strategy. Strategy resumed its weekly purchases, adding 334 BTC worth about 24 million dollars, and Bitcoin rebounded to 86,970 dollars on Monday. Metaplanet sees popularizing Bitcoin among gamers as a new business opportunity through its US Bitcoin operations, according to a letter to shareholders dated October 6 from Matthew Edelman, CEO of the US gaming and advertising company Super League Enterprise, which Metaplanet plans to acquire. Meanwhile, Bitmine said it will stop adding to its Ethereum holdings once they reach 5% of total supply, and Ethereum fell 5% on Wednesday to 2,553 dollars. The company holds about 6.02 million ETH, worth roughly 15.46 billion dollars, equivalent to 4.927% of Ethereum's supply. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said on October 5 that Japan's crypto asset economy was worth 228.3 billion dollars, or about 36.5 trillion yen, from July 2025 to June 2026, ranking second in East Asia after South Korea's 449.1 billion dollars, or about 71.9 trillion yen.

As Bitcoin's price recovers, miners' revenue and profitability have improved, and selling pressure is easing. According to a weekly report from CryptoQuant, Bitcoin rose about 45% from its July low of 58,000 dollars, surpassing 83,000 dollars at the time of the report, while miners' total daily revenue increased from about 27 million dollars to as much as 48 million dollars. The network-wide hash rate recovered from 899 EH/s on July 31 to 962 EH/s, and its decline from the all-time high narrowed from 18% on July 28 to 13%. The miner profit-and-loss sustainability indicator has largely shifted into a fair-reward zone since August 21, when BTC reached 76,000 dollars, weakening the need to sell held BTC for cash flow. The most recent extreme outflow was about 29,000 BTC on August 21, after which it returned to a normal range, and the combined balance of miner addresses holding 100 to 1,000 BTC has also stabilized at about 51,000 BTC since early September.