Bitcoin Recovers Above $76,900 as ETF Outflows and Binance Withdrawals Keep Pressure on Crypto

Bitcoin showed a slight recovery after dropping to nearly $76,300 during European trading, gaining 0.2% to trade around $76,900 since midnight UTC. However, persistent institutional selling and large withdrawals from Binance continued to weigh on market sentiment.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $399 million in net outflows on Monday, extending their withdrawal streak to two sessions. Meanwhile, Binance customers have removed a net $4.72 billion since the exchange resumed operations on Sunday.

Performance across alternative cryptocurrencies remained uneven. Ether climbed 0.6%, while the DeFi index added 0.5%. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index declined 0.8%, indicating continued weakness in the meme token segment.

Institutional Bitcoin Demand Remains Under Pressure

Farside Investors data showed that US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $399 million on Monday. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $405 million in withdrawals, marking its largest single-day outflow since June.

The pressure extended beyond investment funds. Binance recorded $4.72 billion in net customer withdrawals after reopening on Sunday, compared with $3.64 billion withdrawn during the first day.

Additional security concerns emerged after Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin reportedly suffered an attack that drained approximately $40 million from its hot wallets.

In traditional markets, Nasdaq futures rose 0.3%, while Brent crude advanced 1.3% to approximately $106 per barrel. The moves followed a 1.1% decline in the Nasdaq Composite on Monday, when technology stocks faced another wave of selling.

The US midterm elections are taking place Tuesday, adding another potential source of volatility. Traders are also awaiting AMD’s earnings after the market closes and Friday’s US employment report.

Futures Turnover Surges as Traders Reduce Exposure

Crypto futures trading activity accelerated significantly, with 24-hour volume increasing 51% to $168.1 billion. Open interest, however, moved lower by 1.63% to $134.9 billion.

The divergence between higher trading volume and declining open interest suggests market participants are mainly adjusting existing positions or closing trades rather than establishing new directional bets.

The pattern continued for a second day as traders positioned themselves around the US election, with early results and media projections expected on Wednesday.

Liquidations climbed 171% to $382.6 million as leveraged positions were forcibly closed. Selling also gained a slight advantage, accounting for 51.12% of total taker volume. The previous day’s activity had been almost evenly divided between buyers and sellers.

ETH Traders Close Positions Faster Than Bitcoin Traders

Ether futures open interest declined 2.18%, compared with a 0.83% drop in the underlying token’s price. This suggests that traders reduced their ETH exposure during the latest session.

Bitcoin’s futures open interest fell 1.20%, closely matching its 1.23% price decline, indicating less significant changes in overall positioning.

The two assets also showed contrasting cumulative volume delta readings. ETH’s CVD remained positive, reflecting stronger aggressive buying, while Bitcoin’s negative reading indicated that market-order selling was dominant.

Funding rates increased for both cryptocurrencies and remained above zero. This means long-position holders were paying short sellers to keep their futures positions open.

Zcash Faces Heavy Selling Across Spot and Futures Markets

Zcash was the weakest performer among the tracked cryptocurrencies, losing 7.57%. Its futures open interest declined 6.13%, slightly less than the corresponding price fall.

Its cumulative volume delta was also the most negative among major coins, showing that aggressive sellers controlled a larger share of market-order activity.

Although ZEC funding remained positive, it was lower than the reading recorded 24 hours earlier. Long traders were still paying short traders, but the funding imbalance had become less pronounced.

Positive funding remained widespread across the market. ADA, SUI and NEAR recorded some of the highest readings on Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid and Deribit.

HBAR and LINK showed the most negative funding levels, although these readings were limited to individual exchanges. No major cryptocurrency had negative funding across every platform reviewed.

Open-interest-adjusted CVD figures indicated that market selling outweighed buying for most tokens. TRX recorded the strongest positive reading, while ZEC had the weakest.

Bitcoin Options Reflect Rising Election Volatility

Options activity showed a shift toward calls in Bitcoin’s short-term market. The November 7 $78,000 call became the most traded BTC contract over the past 24 hours, with its strike price sitting close to the spot market.

The November 27 $75,000 put ranked second, followed by the November 27 $100,000 call. Despite the increased interest in calls, four of the six most actively traded contracts were still puts.

Short-term volatility expectations also increased ahead of the US elections. Implied volatility for the nearest Bitcoin options expiry reached approximately 51%, compared with 43.5% for the November 4 expiry a day earlier.

Ether options showed a similar increase, with near-term implied volatility climbing to approximately 59%.

The short-dated volatility skew remained significantly higher than longer-term readings for both assets. This suggests that traders are paying a greater premium for put options, reflecting stronger demand for protection against potential price declines.

ETH Options Traders Favor Protective Puts

Ether’s options market showed a stronger bearish bias than Bitcoin’s.

All six of the most actively traded ETH contracts during the latest 24-hour period were put options. The November 6 $1,900 put led trading activity, with its strike approximately 16% below the current spot price.

The concentration of activity in downside contracts points to continued demand for protection against further weakness in Ether.

Lighter Rises as NEAR Extends Its Losses

Lighter’s LIT token gained 2.3% after founder Vladimir Novakovski outlined plans to seek regulatory registrations with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission this month.

The perpetual futures platform intends to apply for authorization as a trading venue and clearing house. However, submitting the applications would only begin the regulatory review process.

NEAR declined another 0.9%, extending its 24-hour losses to 7% and making it one of the weakest performers in the CoinDesk 100.

The decline continued despite a Monday vote by NEAR’s House of Stake governance body to reduce the maximum annual token issuance rate from 2.5% to 1.6%.

Zcash recovered 1.2% to approximately $1,146 after dropping around 8% from Monday morning amid disagreements over its community grants program. The network’s NU7 upgrade is expected this week.

DeFi Tokens Outperform the Broader Crypto Market

DeFi assets showed relative resilience despite continued security concerns across the industry. Aave gained 1.5%, while Uniswap advanced 0.8%.

The gains came as several new attacks targeting cryptocurrency platforms emerged since Friday, including the reported incident involving Mercado Bitcoin.

Market sentiment indicators remained subdued. CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index held at 46 out of 100, while its Fear and Greed Index declined to 34 from 36, keeping investor sentiment in the fear category.