Bitcoin regained the $76,000 level on Friday after falling below it during Thursday’s sharp sell-off in technology stocks.
BTC bounced back above the key price threshold following a decline during U.S. trading hours on Thursday. The downturn erased the gains made during Wednesday’s post-election rally as investors withdrew funds from spot Bitcoin ETFs and weakness across technology shares dampened demand for riskier assets.
Bitcoin is still down more than 5.3% over the past 24 hours despite recovering the $76,000 mark. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, which tracks major digital assets, also dropped 6.28% during the same period.
Data from SoSoValue showed that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced $430.2 million in net outflows on Thursday. Fidelity’s FBTC recorded the largest withdrawals at $199.9 million, while BlackRock’s IBIT saw $105 million in redemptions.
The latest ETF withdrawals erased Wednesday’s $74.6 million in net inflows. Consequently, total net outflows for the week through Thursday climbed to $869.8 million.
The pressure on cryptocurrencies followed heavy losses across Wall Street. The Nasdaq dropped 5.5%, while the S&P 500 declined 4.3% during Thursday’s session. Analysts at FalconX and GSR said concerns about potential delays to AI data center projects following the Democrats’ midterm election victory contributed to the sell-off. Investors are increasingly questioning whether massive spending on AI infrastructure will deliver the expected returns.
Crypto Liquidations Intensify the Market Decline
The decline in Bitcoin was further accelerated by forced liquidations across leveraged trading positions. CoinGlass data showed that $1.26 billion in cryptocurrency positions were liquidated over 24 hours, with $1.12 billion coming from long positions.
This indicates that traders who had positioned themselves for higher prices suffered the largest losses as the market moved lower.
The downturn in equities is also creating spillover effects across digital assets. Investment managers are reportedly selling alternative investments to raise liquidity, meet margin requirements and reduce portfolio leverage.
Simon-Peter Massabni, head of business development at broker XS.com, said the stock market weakness was pushing asset managers to liquidate alternative holdings to cover margin calls and deleverage their portfolios.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s earlier recovery showed limited evidence of strong buying participation. Futures open interest remained largely unchanged during Wednesday’s rebound, suggesting that traders were not significantly increasing their leveraged exposure.
Bitcoin also traded at a discount on Coinbase compared with Binance. This price difference indicated subdued demand from U.S. buyers and raised questions about the strength of the latest recovery.
