Bitcoin sits out stock rebound as ETF outflows extend to fourth day

Bitcoin is little changed since midnight UTC at around $74,000, stabilizing after dipping to $72,700 on Tuesday. Ether held steady near $2,050, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index fell 1.2% and the CoinDesk 80 Index slipped 0.3%.

The performance contrasts with stock index futures, which rebounded early Wednesday. Nasdaq-100 contracts rose 1.7% after AI cloud-computing provider CoreWeave’s earnings beat estimates.

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $95 million on Tuesday, according to SoSoValue, extending outflows to a fourth straight day. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $78 million of that, its eighth straight session of redemptions.

The chances of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at its Dec. 8-9 meeting rose to 90%, according to CME FedWatch, after the U.S. said Tuesday that consumer prices rose a greater-than-forecast 0.4% in October. Over 24 hours, bitcoin has fallen 0.7% and ether 1.7%.

The U.S. bond market is closed today for Veterans Day.

Derivatives positioning

• Liquidations jump: Crypto futures liquidations surged 288% to $725 million in 24 hours, coinciding with Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data, according to CoinGlass. Trading volume rose 24% to $204.8 billion, while open interest slipped 1% to $127.2 billion, a sign that traders closed positions.
• BTC funding is positive, but muted: Bitcoin open interest fell 0.2% against a 0.6% price drop. Funding is positive at 0.0078%, or 8.6% annualized, below the 0.01% baseline, so longs are still paying shorts, but less than usual. The taker buy/sell ratio is 0.97, with sellers in control. Liquidations were $200.5 million, with 85% of them longs. Annualized basis on December contracts is 5%-7%.
• Ether liquidations beat BTC’s: Ether open interest fell 3.6% against a 1.7% price drop, so money left the market. Liquidations were $253 million, larger than bitcoin’s even though its open interest of $25.2 billion is half the size. Funding is still positive at 0.0059%.
• Outflows from altcoins: Zcash (ZEC) led altcoin liquidations at $40.3 million as it fell around 13%, with open interest dropping 10.5%. XRP open interest fell 3.8% against a 1.8% price drop, and HYPE’s fell 3.0% against 2.2%. A bigger drop in open interest relative to price implies capital leaving the market.
• TradFi perps take volume: 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’s volume topped that of solana and XRP. Open interest in Nvidia perps rose 50% to $411 million after the stock fell 5.5% on Tuesday.
• Puts lead: Among Deribit bitcoin options expiring from Nov. 12 to Nov. 27, put volume was 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 is dominated by far out-of-the-money calls, with the largest open interest at $81,000 (8,306 BTC) and $84,000 (5,231 BTC).
• Volatility steady, puts pricier: At-the-money implied volatility is around 36% for Nov. 27 options and 38% for Nov. 13. Puts at the 25-delta strike are priced around 4 to 5 volatility points above calls, a sign that demand for downside protection persists.

Token talk

• Telegram’s wallet push is back in the spotlight as gram (GRAM), the renamed toncoin, leads the CoinDesk 100 with a gain of around 5% since midnight UTC, two days after founder Pavel Durov said more than 700,000 wallets were created in the app within 48 hours.
• Zcash (ZEC) is getting hit hard, down around 14% over 24 hours as leveraged longs are wiped out and money exits Grayscale’s Zcash ETF. Monero (XMR) is moving the other way, up 2% since midnight UTC.
• Midnight , the privacy chain tied to Cardano, is up around 5% since midnight UTC after its Ledger 9 upgrade went live on mainnet this week.
• Altcoins are still stuck in bitcoin’s shadow. CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season index is at 40 out of 100, down from 49 last Thursday and well short of the 75 that is said to signal an “altcoin season.” Bitcoin’s share of the total crypto market rose to 60.5% from 59.9% on Friday. The Fear and Greed Index is at 26, in fear territory.