Live updates: Bitcoin slips under $86,000 as money rotates into BCH and ZEC

Bitcoin matched Monday's high near $87,300 before running into selling, while citcoin cash surged 28% on a CME futures listing and ZEC added 9%.

A wallet holding 600 bitcoin that had not moved since July 2012 transferred the coins, worth about $51.9 million, to a new address on Monday, according to onchain data flagged by Galaxy Research via an X post on Tuesday. The bitcoin holding was received more than 14 years ago, when it was worth roughly $8 token.

The move appears to be a wallet migration from a legacy bitcoin address to a Native SegWit wallet, suggesting the owner is undertaking a long-term migration or consolidation rather than a liquidation. The coins were not sent to a known exchange address, and the recipient remains unidentified. Other long-dormant wallets were recently moved by Satoshi-era holders without using exchanges, thereby limiting evidence of immediate selling pressure.

Bitcoin Cash jumped 28% to nearly $349 over 24 hours, the largest move among sizeable tokens, after CME Group said on Monday it will list Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures from Oct. 19.

Futures on a regulated U.S. exchange give funds a way to take a position without holding the coin, which matters for institutions whose mandates bar them from custodying crypto directly. It also gives market makers a hedging venue, which usually tightens spot pricing.

Bitcoin itself is trading around $85,800, down under 1% over 24 hours after matching Monday's intraday high near $87,300 and meeting the same selling into it. ZEC rose 9% to just above $1,646 and XRP 3% to nearly $1.59, while TRX fell 2%.

"Optimism in the altcoin market and in equities suggests that we are witnessing a temporary shift of speculative capital from the leading cryptocurrency into altcoins," Alex Kuptsikevich, senior analyst at FxPro, said in an email to CoinDesk. "Many investors had parked their cryptocurrency-allocated capital in the most liquid asset class and are now seeking more profitable opportunities."

"In such situations, there has previously been a slowdown but not a reversal in BTC, as price pullbacks have attracted new buyers who had previously kept their money out of the risky crypto market," he added.

On BCH specifically, the note pointed out the token has only climbed back to levels last seen in the second half of May, after reversing near $660 in early January and falling to $190.

A continued bid would put $450 in range, where buyers were active between October 2025 and this May.