October was the second-worst month for Ethereum (ETH) holders since 2016: the coin lost 16.1% of its value. The decline broke a three-month growth streak and stripped investors of a noticeable portion of their summer profits.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) also fell in October, while altcoins depreciated even more. New buyers can now purchase coins and tokens cheaper, but the decline, judging by statistics from past years, may continue in November as well. At the time of publication, ETH was trading near the $2288 mark.

The summer growth streak has ended

ETH has fallen more sharply in October only once — in 2016, when the coin depreciated by 16.7%. The third-deepest decline came in 2018: the price dropped by 15.5% then.

Before that, the price had risen for three consecutive months: in July — by 18.5%, in August — by 32.5%, in September — by 8.84%. The year overall has been uneven for ETH: five out of ten months ended in decline, with the deepest drops occurring in January (-17.7%), February (-19.6%), and June (-21.8%).

November statistics for ETH are mixed: since 2016, five such months ended in growth and an equal number in decline. Notably, after the two previous disastrous Octobers, in 2016 and 2018, the price continued to fall and lost another 21.6% and 42.5% respectively.

Ethereum founder Joseph Lubin, meanwhile, reminded of the network's strengths: neutrality, resistance to censorship, self-custody of funds, reliability (11 years of operation without downtime), and guaranteed execution of correct transactions and smart contracts. Centralized crypto services, in his opinion, are merely a stepping stone on the path to a truly decentralized future.

Bitcoin posted its worst October in ten years

By the end of October, the BTC price had dropped to $77,600 and lost 7.2% over the month. This month became Bitcoin's third negative October since 2016, the second in a row, and the worst in ten years. Over the past ten years, October was profitable for the coin seven times, with a typical, or median, gain of 10.7%.

For most of the month, the price stayed above $80,000 based on trading-day closes. A 4.1% decline occurred on October 29 — the day Binance suspended withdrawals due to a $6.3 billion hack. This episode clearly illustrates what Lubin was talking about: on a centralized platform, a user cannot dispose of their coins until the exchange reopens withdrawals.

Altcoins lost even more in October: XRP — 16%, SOL — 19.1%, DOGE — 20%, SUI — 22.8%. HYPE and BNB fared better than other major coins, declining only 3.2% and 8.5%. The BTC price has dropped 11.5% since the start of the year, shedding part of the third-quarter gains when the coin appreciated by 42.6%.

The BTC price has risen in November only four times over the past nine years, with a median monthly change of -7.1%. After the two previous failed Octobers, the decline intensified: in 2018, the price fell 36.6% in November, and in 2025 — by 17.6%.

Funds, traders, and developers: what else matters for ETH

The price decline coincided with outflows from U.S. spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Ethereum: investors withdrew $1.61 billion from them in October. This is a record monthly figure since the products launched in July 2024 — demand for ETH has weakened even among those who invest through regulated instruments.

Crypto trader Ansem allows for a continued correction: he changed his forecast for BTC and ETH to pessimistic, as both coins, according to him, have broken their medium-term trend and may accelerate their decline below $82,000 and $2400. The trader links his concerns to a possible reversal in overheated AI company stocks.

Technological news, meanwhile, looks more positive than the market: Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin announced in mid-October a victory in the race for zero-knowledge (ZK) proof speed, which allows blocks to be verified without recalculating all transactions. He was responding to the result of ZKsync, whose Airbender Prime system processed 99% of 7200 consecutive mainnet blocks in under 10 seconds, and now considers security the top priority.

Cryptalist analysis: The market is demonstrating a classic risk-off picture: outflows from spot Ethereum ETFs and the synchronized weakness of altcoins point to a reduction in institutional appetite for risk rather than fundamental problems with the network. The historical November seasonality for ETH and BTC is skewed to the negative side, but market weakness is already largely priced in, which creates preconditions for an asymmetric reaction to any positive catalysts. The key levels to watch remain $2400 for ETH and $82,000 for BTC — holding them will determine whether the correction escalates into a prolonged bearish trend.