Bitcoin ETF outflows hit fifth day as Nvidia leads tech selloff

By Tom Whitfield

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $299.9 million on Wednesday, extending outflows to a fifth straight day. According to SoSoValue, the sequence brought withdrawals to about $1.44 billion since Nov. 5.

BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $269.7 million of Wednesday’s outflows and recorded a ninth consecutive session of redemptions. Bitcoin traded at $73,512.58, down 0.7% since midnight UTC and hovering around $73,400 near the session low.

Ether stood at $2,031.88, down 0.5% around $2,044, while the CoinDesk 80 Index fell 1%. Over 24 hours, bitcoin lost 0.8% and ether 0.7%.

What drove the selloff?

Nvidia shares fell around 7% in pre-market trading after The New York Times reported that CEO Jensen Huang had a relationship with a company executive. The Wall Street Journal separately reported that the board was preparing to remove him. Nvidia has not announced a decision.

Nasdaq-100 futures fell 0.6%, surrendering part of Wednesday’s CoreWeave-led rally. Traders were also watching for any decision from Nvidia’s board.

How did derivatives positioning change?

Lower volume and open interest indicated that crypto trading cooled and capital left the market as positions closed. Liquidations also fell sharply, with the contraction reaching 63.67%.

• Across crypto futures, 24-hour volume fell 20.64% to $168.6 billion and open interest (OI) declined 2.92% to $125.8 billion. Liquidations fell 63.67% to $263.7 million; longs represented 64.5% of the total, meaning more long positions were liquidated than shorts.
• Bitcoin open interest fell 2.9% against a 0.6% price decline, while futures volume dropped 27.6%. Negative cumulative volume delta (CVD) showed market orders skewed toward selling, and funding stayed moderately positive. Bitcoin recorded the largest liquidations of any coin, at $62.9 million.
• Ether open interest fell 1.8% against a 0.6% price decline. Its volume dropped 37.2%, the sharpest contraction among major coins; CVD was flat, while moderately positive funding meant longs paid shorts.
• Monero’s annualized average funding rate for perpetual futures across exchanges reached approximately 80%, far above every other coin and still rising since early morning. Most other funding rates, including bitcoin and ether, were moderately positive; GRAM was negative, meaning shorts paid longs.
• Open-interest-adjusted CVD was negative for most major coins, including bitcoin, indicating a market-order selling bias. GRAM, NEAR and ZEC registered positive CVD.
• Dogecoin open interest fell 5.9% against a 1.5% price drop. Zcash open interest fell 5.4% against a 0.4% price drop, even as positive CVD showed market orders leaned toward buying.

What do options signal?

Bitcoin’s one-week put skew, the premium of puts over calls, remained positive and rose to about 11%. One-week implied volatility eased to about 35% from 38% on Tuesday.

Four of bitcoin’s six most-traded contracts were calls, led by the $80,000 call expiring Dec. 25. The other two were puts at $73,000 and $74,000, both expiring Nov. 13.

Ether’s one-week skew edged up to about 12%, leaving puts at a premium. Four of its six most-traded contracts were puts, although the busiest was the $2,200 call expiring Nov. 20.

Which tokens and projects moved?

• Gram ($GRAM): The renamed toncoin ranked first on the CoinDesk 100 for a second day, gaining 5.2% since midnight UTC as Telegram’s wallet push drew attention. Earlier this week, founder Pavel Durov said: “More than 700,000 wallets were created in the app within 48 hours.”
• Zcash (ZEC): ZEC gained 2.4% after a rough start to the week. A draft proposal would remove 50,000 ZEC, worth about $50 million, from the Zcash Community Grants treasury, with holders voting Nov. 16-30.
• Render (RENDER): The decentralized GPU network fell 3.1% as Nvidia slid.
• Avalanche (AVAX): AVAX rose 2.0% as traders continued digesting Monday’s news that a clearing firm tied to a planned NYSE-affiliated tokenized securities platform will use Avalanche’s blockchain, pending regulatory approval.
• DeFi: The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index (DFX) fell 1.6%. Aave traded at $115.44, while ether.fi (ETHFI) and ethena (ENA) each fell between 2.5% and 3.3%. Monero ($XMR) dropped 4.5%, making it the CoinDesk 100’s worst performer without an obvious catalyst.

CoinMarketCap’s index stood at 39 out of 100, down from 40 a day earlier and far below the 75 level that signals an altcoin season. The fear and greed index stood at 26, placing sentiment in fear territory.

Immediate checkpoints run from initial jobless claims at 13:30 UTC to the Federal Reserve’s Dec. 8-9 meeting. CME FedWatch pricing placed the probability of a hike around 90%, making the two-day meeting the next fixed policy deadline.