U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $450 million in net outflows Tuesday, their largest one-day withdrawal since June 25, as the Senate’s decision not to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act triggered broad selling across crypto markets.
SoSoValue data showed the $450 million withdrawal from spot Bitcoin funds followed a Senate vote that fell roughly 10 votes short of the 60 needed to advance the legislation. Seven Democrats who had participated in months of negotiations also voted against the motion.
Bitcoin initially declined after the vote but later stabilized. BTC was little changed from midnight UTC at around $75,575.59, leaving it down 1.7% over 24 hours.
The CoinDesk 20 Index was similarly subdued overnight, falling less than 0.1% since midnight after a 4.6% plunge Tuesday. That was its steepest daily decline since June 5.
Attention has now shifted to the Federal Reserve, which is due to release its interest-rate decision later Wednesday. An increase was widely viewed as the market’s base case ahead of the meeting.
The Senate’s failure to move the Clarity Act forward also leaves little room for market-structure legislation to clear the chamber this year. Congress is expected to be under split control in January, further complicating the bill’s future.
Regulatory-Exposed Tokens Fall More Sharply
Bitcoin’s 1.7% decline was relatively modest compared with the losses suffered by tokens viewed as more exposed to U.S. regulatory decisions.
XLM dropped 9.6% over 24 hours, while XRP declined 8.1%. Of the assets tracked by the CoinDesk 100, 95 ended the period lower.
Traditional markets were comparatively calm. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.33%, gold rose 0.88% and silver advanced 1.37%. The Dollar Index was unchanged.
More Than $570M in Futures Liquidated
The crypto sell-off also forced traders to unwind leveraged positions. More than $570 million in futures positions were liquidated during the 24-hour period, the highest total since Aug. 22, although the amount remained below the major liquidation waves seen in early February and early June.
The taker long-short volume ratio also shifted below neutral, with short trades accounting for 51.5% of activity. Takers execute directly against orders already available in the order book, consuming liquidity in the process.
On Hyperliquid, the trader long-short ratio eased to 2.53 from 2.71. The previous 2.71 reading was the highest since early October 2025, when bitcoin was trading above $120,000.
Long positions nevertheless remain more than twice as numerous as shorts, leaving traders with significant bullish leverage that could be exposed to liquidations if prices weaken further.
Bitcoin Futures Point to Growing Short Exposure
Bitcoin’s futures open interest rose even as the asset declined. BTC fell 1.4% over 24 hours, while open interest increased from 676,000 BTC to 688,000 BTC.
That combination is often interpreted as new short positions being added during a price decline. The 24-hour open-interest-adjusted CVD for BTC was also negative, suggesting more shorts were being executed at market prices rather than through passive limit orders.
Funding rates for perpetual futures remained positive, indicating that some traders still maintained bullish expectations.
XRP futures showed a comparable setup. XRP fell almost 10% while open interest increased slightly, although total positioning remained well below historical highs.
Options Markets Remain Relatively Calm
Derivatives data across major altcoins continued to show selling pressure. XRP, ETH, TRX, DOGE, XLM and SHIB all posted negative 24-hour CVD readings, while funding rates were bearish for ETH, XLM, TRX, SOL, BCH, ADA and LINK.
Despite the spot-market weakness, implied volatility remained contained. Bitcoin’s BVIV and ether’s EVIV 30-day volatility measures stayed within recent ranges and well below their year-to-date highs, suggesting traders were not anticipating an unusually large volatility move around the Fed decision.
Options skew was more defensive. Bitcoin’s one-week and one-month skews remained positive and increased to about 5.76% and 6.33%, respectively, reflecting greater demand for downside protection. Ether options showed a similar pattern.
Options volume, however, remained mixed. Calls accounted for most of the heavily traded Bitcoin contracts, with the $79,000 strike leading activity. The five most-traded ether options were all puts.
ARB, SYN and Privacy Coins Move Higher
Arbitrum (ARB) gained 16% over 24 hours after Standard Chartered forecast a potential price of $10 by the end of 2030, roughly 70 times its current level. The bank cited revenue from Robinhood Chain and growth in tokenized assets. Its target for the end of this year is $0.50.
Synapse (SYN) also more than doubled to $0.1787 despite the absence of an obvious catalyst.
The trading data suggests the move may have been driven by short covering. SYN recorded $310.64 million in futures volume against a market capitalization of $41.18 million. Open interest represented about 60% of its market value, while Binance’s long-short account ratio stood at 0.93.
Privacy tokens continued to outperform. Zcash (ZEC) rose 6.9% to $1,186.75, while Dash (DASH) added 2.9%.
Lighter (LIT) climbed 6% to $4.27, and Raydium (RAY) gained 5.4% to $1.30. Both recovered some of Tuesday’s losses but remained below their starting levels for the week.
AAVE, JUP and ETHFI were among the weaker DeFi tokens, each falling more than 2% after midnight UTC.
The declines followed comments from ether.fi founder Mike Silagadze, who told CoinDesk before the Clarity Act vote that the U.S. represents a relatively small portion of ether.fi’s market, limiting the legislation’s expected impact on the project.
