Bitcoin extended its retreat on Thursday as traders parsed upbeat—but thin—headlines from a meeting between U.S. and Chinese leaders and a Federal Reserve message that offered little comfort to dovish hopes. The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell 2.5% to $110,225 by 01:52 ET (05:52 GMT), unwinding much of last week’s rebound and leaving October in the red after the flash crash that hit at the start of the month.

Sentiment initially found a modest lift after President Donald Trump described his talks with President Xi Jinping in South Korea as “amazing” and said a trade agreement was “pretty close,” pointing to progress on rare-earth supplies and U.S. agricultural purchases—two of the most sensitive topics in the relationship. He also said he would halve fentanyl-linked tariffs on China, implying a cut in overall U.S. tariffs to 47% from 57%. Yet the absence of concrete timelines or signed commitments kept risk appetite contained. For crypto specifically, the trade détente matters less for cash flows than for psychology: bitcoin’s early-October plunge was sparked chiefly by a sudden deterioration in U.S.–China rhetoric, so traders are inclined to fade relief rallies until details appear on paper.

The macro undertone turned heavier after the Federal Reserve delivered a widely expected 25-basis-point rate cut—its second this year—while warning that a December move was not a given. Policymakers flagged sticky inflation and reduced visibility into the economy amid a prolonged government shutdown. In practice, that combination supports real yields and the dollar at the margin, conditions that typically dampen demand for non-yielding assets like bitcoin. With the policy path still data-dependent, speculative positioning has little incentive to chase topside levels without a clearer signal that the easing cycle will accelerate.

Corporate news in the background underscored crypto’s slow-burn mainstreaming. Fortune reported that Mastercard is in late-stage talks to acquire Zerohash, a crypto and stablecoin infrastructure firm, in a deal valued between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. While such an acquisition would mark another notable bridge between traditional finance and digital assets, it did little to offset the near-term macro drag. Stablecoins remain a focal point for large institutions following regulatory clarifications in the U.S. earlier this year, but those structural shifts tend to influence adoption curves over quarters, not trading ranges over days.

Broader digital-asset prices tracked bitcoin lower. Ether slipped 2.7% to $3,915.69, BNB eased 0.8% to $1,112.40, and XRP shed 2.5%, while Solana and Cardano posted more measured declines of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively. Among memecoins, Dogecoin fell 1.7%. One outlier was the $TRUMP token, which rose nearly 5% after reports that the entity behind it, Fight Fight Fight LLC, is in talks to acquire the U.S. operations of crowdfunding platform Republic.com—another reminder that token-specific catalysts can decouple from the macro tape.

Technically, bitcoin’s failure to build on last week’s recovery leaves the near-term tone fragile. Sellers defended the $116,000 area, and prices are testing support around $110,000. Without a dovish shift in Fed communication or tangible U.S.–China deliverables, rallies are likely to meet supply near recent breakdown zones.

Near-term direction will hinge on three catalysts: follow-through from Washington and Beijing in the form of written tariff and export-control steps; incoming inflation and labor data that could re-open the door to a December Fed cut; and the persistence—or fading—of positive spot-ETF flows. For now, bitcoin remains a passenger to macro currents, with volatility primed to pick up as those narratives evolve.