Bitcoin Hits Lowest Level as $1.28 Billion Exits ETFs
Bitcoin slid to $73,477 on Sunday (local time), marking its lowest level since August 21. The cryptocurrency had climbed above $81,000 last Wednesday, only to drop 9% in just four days. It briefly rebounded above $75,000, but the recovery failed to hold.
U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw $1.28 billion in outflows over the past week — six times the previous week's outflow of $203 million — the largest weekly withdrawal since late June and the second straight week of outflows. BlackRock's IBIT alone faced $403 million in redemptions on Friday.
Investor sentiment has also soured. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index stood at 29, deep in "fear" territory. Options markets showed heightened hedging against further declines: Bitcoin's one-week implied volatility jumped from about 33% to around 43% on Thursday, and four of the six most actively traded option contracts were puts with strike prices between $70,000 and $72,000.
The weekend sell-off was linked to concerns that a Democratic-controlled Congress could tighten oversight of cryptocurrencies. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a prominent crypto critic, has been floated as a candidate for chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Last week's midterm election results and a $6 billion hack of Binance were also cited as factors behind the decline. TD Cowen warned that passage of the CLARITY Act, which the crypto industry supports, has become nearly impossible.
On the charts, Bitcoin is oscillating between support at the 200-day moving average (around $73,150) and resistance at the 100-day moving average (around $77,430).
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release October consumer price index (CPI) data at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time on the 10th. Futures markets have priced in a 78.8% probability of a 0.25 percentage point rate hike at the December Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
