Why Is Crypto Going Down Today? Bitcoin Slips Toward $82,600, XRP Falls 7%

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Crypto prices fell for a second day on Thursday. Bitcoin was down 2.8% over 24 hours at about $83,400 by 08:50 UTC, while XRP lost 7.2% and Dogecoin 6.6%, according to CoinGecko data.No single headline drove the drop. It is a pullback after Monday's rally took bitcoin to its highest daily close since January, and it arrives a day before Friday's quarterly options expiry on Deribit.London's trading industry is coming home!My view on bitcoin has not changed. This is the retest of $82,614 that I expected, and the move toward $98,000 to $99,500 stays in play as long as that level holds on a daily closing basis.How Low Can Bitcoin Go?On Binance, bitcoin traded at $83,513 on my daily chart at 08:55 UTC, down 1.05% on the day. It has fallen 3.6% from Monday's close of $86,620 and sits about 1.1% above the $82,614 support.That level was the trigger in my September 22 bitcoin analysis, where I wrote that I expected a retest of the breakout before any move toward $99,500. Wednesday's low of $83,500 and Thursday's low of $83,301 are that retest so far.Paul Howard, senior director at Wincent, flagged this path on Tuesday. He said a break below $85,000 "could see the market retrace towards" $81,000 to $82,000, just above a zone where options traders appear to hold downside protection.A daily close below $82,614 would weaken my scenario. The next support on my chart is $75,339, about 10% below the current price and close to the $75,416 average cost of Strategy's bitcoin holdings cited by Oliver Carding, head of marketing at Tesseract Group.Is Ethereum Still Heading Higher?Ether is the less clear case. It broke above $2,757 on Monday, the level I pointed to in my September 19 Ethereum analysis, but it closed just under it on Tuesday and Wednesday's 2.5% drop pushed it further away.At $2,664.6 on Bitstamp, ETH is 3.5% under that resistance and 1.8% above support at $2,616. Holding $2,616 keeps the door open to another attempt at $2,757. A daily close below it points to $2,393.If ether reclaims $2,757 on a closing basis, my chart's one-to-one projection of the earlier rally points to $3,499, about 31% above the current price, with resistance at $3,371 and $3,454 on the way.Why Is XRP Falling More Than Bitcoin?XRP ran further in the rally, so it is giving back more. It touched $1.657 on Wednesday before closing near $1.50 on Bitstamp, and it slipped below that round number on Thursday to $1.479.On my chart, XRP broke out of a bull flag this week and has now fallen back below $1.56, so the pattern's completion is on hold. Nothing is settled yet. Support at $1.46 is 1.3% below the price, and while it holds, the flag's measured target at $1.97, about 33% higher, remains a valid scenario.Can Dogecoin Hold Its 200-Day Average?Dogecoin fell 7.7% on Wednesday from $0.1004 to $0.0927 on Bitstamp. That pulled it back from the flag breakout I described in my September 21 Dogecoin analysis.DOGE is now balancing on its 200-day EMA at $0.0930, with the price at $0.0931. Support sits at $0.0884, and a return above $0.0950 would put $0.1043 and then the $0.1157 target, about 24% above the current price, back in view.What Could Move Crypto Next?The first test is Friday's quarterly expiry on Deribit. Carding put it at around 186,000 contracts, with the largest concentration at $70,000 on both calls and puts, and said he treats it "as a positioning and roll event rather than something that sets direction."Jeff Anderson, head of US at STS Digital, said on Tuesday the market "feels overbought in the short run" after Strategy's latest purchases, while keeping $90,000 in view. The next dated catalysts are September CPI on October 14 and the Federal Reserve meeting on October 27 and 28.For bitcoin, the line stays at $82,614. A daily close below it would send my chart toward $75,339, while a hold keeps the $98,068 to $99,486 zone as the base case.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.