October’s wobble hasn’t broken the cycle, Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of research, argues.
The note was first sent to subscribers of Galaxy Research’s Weekly Research Brief and later reproduced on X.
Thorn says the Oct. 10 sell-off began with high leverage slamming into thin order books, then worsened as exchange auto-deleveraging capped some market-maker shorts and thinned liquidity at the worst point. He cites roughly $19 billion of liquidations as bitcoin slid from an Oct. 6 all-time high near $126,300 to an intraday low around $107,000, with ether falling from about $4,800 to roughly $3,500 before markets steadied into the weekend.
Risk appetite faded again as macro jitters resurfaced. Thorn points to softness in chip stocks, a hawkish turn from a Federal Reserve governor, renewed regional-bank worries and geopolitical noise. Classic risk-off markers reinforced the tone, he notes, with gold and silver setting fresh records and the 10-year Treasury yield dipping back below 4%.
He also flags a crypto-specific drag: digital asset treasury companies have cooled. He says that with equity prices down across that cohort, there’s less price-insensitive buying to deploy into crypto, which adds to near-term fragility even after the initial washout.
Medium term, however, Thorn stays constructive and highlights three forces he thinks can power the next leg higher.
First is AI capital spending. He frames the current wave as a real-economy capex cycle led by cash-rich incumbents — hyperscalers, chipmakers and data-center operators — reinforced by significant U.S. policy support, rather than a rerun of a purely speculative dot-com bubble. Corporate budgets and government posture, he argues, point to a long runway.
Second are stablecoins. Thorn points our that dollar-linked tokens continue to gain traction as payment rails, broadening participation, deepening liquidity and anchoring more activity on public chains. He believes those plumbing effects can support the ecosystem even when price action chops.
Third is tokenization. According to Thorn, moving real-world assets and pieces of traditional market infrastructure on-chain is shifting from pilots to implementation, creating fresh demand for block space and for core assets that secure, route and settle that activity. Thorn says that transition benefits platforms tied to that flow.
Within that backdrop, he remains positive on bitcoin’s “digital gold” role amid persistent doubts about fiscal and monetary prudence. He also sees a favorable setup for majors like ETH and SOL tied to stablecoin usage and tokenization, even if near-term rallies risk stalling below prior highs.
The near-term message is caution — respect thinner liquidity, post-crash psychology and a “wall of worry” mood. The medium-term message is resilience: three tailwinds are in place, he says, to keep the trend pointing up once markets finish digesting the shock.
