Bitcoin Flat at $74,000 as ETF Outflows Hit Fourth Straight Day

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $95 million on Tuesday, their fourth consecutive day of outflows, according to SoSoValue data. BlackRock's IBIT accounted for $78 million of the total, its eighth straight session of redemptions — roughly 82 cents of every dollar that left the products came from the industry's largest fund.

Bitcoin traded near $74,000, little changed since midnight UTC and down 0.7% over 24 hours, after dipping to $72,700 on Tuesday. Ether held around $2,050, off 1.7% on the day. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index fell 1.2% and the CoinDesk 80 Index slipped 0.3%.

The stagnation contrasts with equity futures, which rallied early Wednesday. Nasdaq-100 contracts rose 1.7% after AI cloud-computing provider CoreWeave beat earnings estimates. Bitcoin did not follow — a decoupling worth watching, though one day of divergence proves little.

Why is the Fed back in focus?

Markets now price a 90% probability that the Federal Reserve raises interest rates at its Dec. 8-9 meeting, according to CME FedWatch. The shift followed Tuesday's consumer price data, which showed U.S. inflation rose 0.4% in October, above forecasts. Higher rates historically pressure risk assets; the market has already voted with its positioning.

The U.S. bond market was closed Wednesday for Veterans Day, thinning liquidity.

How violent was the derivatives flush?

Crypto futures liquidations surged 288% to $725 million in 24 hours, coinciding with the inflation print, according to CoinGlass. Trading volume rose 24% to $204.8 billion, while open interest slipped 1% to $127.2 billion — a pattern that indicates traders closed positions rather than opened new ones.

Ether suffered disproportionately. Its liquidations reached $253 million, exceeding bitcoin's $200.5 million despite ether's open interest of $25.2 billion being half the size of bitcoin's. Ether open interest fell 3.6% against a 1.7% price drop; when capital contracts faster than price, money is leaving the market, not merely repositioning.

Bitcoin funding remains positive at 0.0078% — 8.6% annualized — but sits below the 0.01% baseline. Longs still pay shorts, just less than usual. The taker buy/sell ratio of 0.97 puts sellers marginally in control, and 85% of bitcoin liquidations were longs. Annualized basis on December contracts runs 5% to 7%.

Zcash led altcoin liquidations at $40.3 million as ZEC fell around 13%, with its open interest dropping 10.5%. XRP open interest fell 3.8% against a 1.8% price drop; HYPE fell 3.0% against a 2.2% decline.

What are options traders paying for?

Downside protection dominates. Among Deribit bitcoin options expiring Nov. 12 to Nov. 27, put volume ran 1.5 times call volume. Eight of the 10 most active contracts are puts at strikes from $69,000 to $74,000, led by the Nov. 27 $69,000 put. Friday's expiry skews the other way, with the largest open interest in far out-of-the-money calls at $81,000 (8,306 BTC) and $84,000 (5,231 BTC).

At-the-money implied volatility sits near 36% for Nov. 27 options and 38% for Nov. 13. Puts at the 25-delta strike price 4 to 5 volatility points above calls — persistent demand for insurance against a fall.

Where did the volume migrate?

Four of the 10 most-traded perpetual futures contracts over 24 hours were TradFi-linked, according to Coinalyze: the Direxion 3x semiconductor ETF SOXL ($8.4 billion), SanDisk ($4.4 billion), gold ($2.4 billion) and Nvidia ($2.0 billion). SOXL out-traded solana and XRP. Nvidia perp open interest rose 50% to $411 million after the stock fell 5.5% on Tuesday.

Which tokens moved?

Gram (GRAM), the renamed toncoin, led the CoinDesk 100 with a roughly 5% gain, two days after Telegram founder Pavel Durov said more than 700,000 wallets were created in the app within 48 hours. The claim is a company statement, not audited data.

Zcash fell around 14% over 24 hours as leveraged longs were wiped out and money exited Grayscale's Zcash ETF; Monero gained 2%. Midnight (NIGHT), the privacy chain tied to Cardano, rose around 5% after its Ledger 9 upgrade went live on mainnet.

The Altcoin Season index stands at 40 out of 100, down from 49 last Thursday and well short of the 75 threshold said to signal an "altcoin season." Bitcoin's market share rose to 60.5% from 59.9% on Friday. The Fear and Greed Index sits at 26 — fear territory.

The immediate test comes Friday, when Deribit's expiry forces a reckoning between dominant near-term puts and the concentrated call open interest at $81,000 and $84,000.