Bitcoin continued to face selling pressure on Tuesday despite a strong recovery in U.S. stock markets a day earlier. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $201 million in net outflows on Monday, as investors prepared for the release of October’s U.S. inflation data later today.
Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $74,200 after trending lower since midnight UTC. The cryptocurrency briefly touched an overnight low near $74,100 as traders positioned themselves ahead of the latest inflation report, which is expected to indicate a moderation in consumer price growth during October.
Ether (ETH) declined 1.4%, while the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) index slipped 0.2%. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) bucked the broader trend, advancing 0.4%.
The U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) report is due at 13:30 UTC. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect headline inflation to increase 0.3% in October, while core CPI is projected to rise 0.2%. Both estimates are below September’s respective increases of 0.6% and 0.3%, suggesting that inflationary pressures may be easing.
U.S. equities recovered sharply on Monday, with the S&P 500 posting its biggest single-day gain since April 8. The Nasdaq Composite also advanced 2.7%, recovering part of last week’s losses triggered by concerns surrounding the AI sector. Bitcoin, however, failed to follow the equity market’s recovery and remained largely unchanged over the past 24 hours.
According to Farside Investors, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $201 million in net withdrawals on Monday. BlackRock’s IBIT led the outflows, losing $213.2 million. The fund has now experienced seven consecutive trading sessions of net redemptions.
Derivatives positioning
Crypto liquidations decline sharply: Total crypto futures liquidations fell approximately 84% to $184 million over the past 24 hours, compared with more than $1 billion on Monday. Trading volume also declined 8.55% to $165.2 billion, while open interest edged up 0.59% to $128.4 billion. The data suggests that speculative activity has cooled, with relatively limited fresh capital entering or leaving the market. The taker long/short volume ratio remained almost evenly split, with buyers accounting for 49.69% of activity and sellers representing 50.31%.
Funding rates remain positive across most assets: Annualized funding rates stayed slightly above zero for most major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ether. This indicates that traders holding long futures positions are paying funding fees to short sellers. GRAM, formerly known as Toncoin, stood out with funding rates near -60%, pointing to a significant imbalance toward bearish positioning.
Cumulative volume delta reveals mixed market sentiment: Cumulative volume delta (CVD), which measures the difference between aggressive buying and selling activity and is adjusted for open interest in this dataset, showed divergent trends across the market. GRAM, Hedera (HBAR) and Tron (TRX) recorded the strongest buying activity through market orders. In contrast, Zcash (ZEC), Uniswap (UNI) and XRP experienced the heaviest selling pressure.
Major cryptocurrencies see modest open-interest changes: Bitcoin’s notional open interest increased 0.70% alongside a 0.25% price gain. Ether open interest rose 0.72% even as its price declined 0.35%. Solana (SOL) recorded a 1.94% increase in open interest despite a 1.06% price drop. These movements indicate that futures positions continued to attract capital even as underlying prices showed limited strength.
HYPE and XRP experience declining futures exposure: Hyperliquid’s HYPE token recorded a 1.14% decline in open interest despite gaining 1.62% in price, suggesting that traders reduced their leveraged exposure during the recovery. XRP also experienced a 3.83% drop in open interest, accompanied by a 0.69% price decline. The token additionally ranked among the assets with the strongest market-order selling activity.
Zcash open interest falls alongside its price: ZEC open interest declined 3.31% over 24 hours, while its market price dropped 5.41%. Since open interest decreased by a smaller percentage than the price, much of the decline may reflect the reduced valuation of existing futures positions rather than significant capital withdrawals. Nevertheless, Zcash recorded the strongest selling pressure in the CVD readings.
AVAX futures attract additional capital: Avalanche’s AVAX token saw open interest jump 13% over 24 hours, significantly outpacing its 5% price increase. The divergence suggests that traders opened additional futures positions as the token rallied. However, CVD remained negative, indicating that aggressive market orders continued to favor sellers. Annualized funding rates stood around -6%, meaning short traders were paying funding fees to those holding long positions. AVAX’s rally followed Ava Labs’ November 9 announcement that Avalanche would serve as the underlying ledger for clearing and settlement on a planned tokenized securities platform associated with the New York Stock Exchange.
Bitcoin options indicate stronger demand for downside protection: Bitcoin’s 25-delta options skew remained positive across expiration dates, reaching approximately 10% for one-week contracts. This suggests that put options command higher premiums than comparable call options, reflecting demand for downside protection. One-week at-the-money implied volatility stood near 38%, indicating the level of price movement options traders are anticipating. Trading activity was also concentrated in put contracts, particularly the $74,000 strike expiring November 13.
Ether options show stronger call trading activity: Ether’s one-week options skew remained positive at approximately 11%, meaning put options continued to trade at a premium over calls. However, the most actively traded contracts were largely calls, with the December 25 $2,600 strike attracting the highest activity. At-the-money implied volatility remained relatively stable across expiration dates, fluctuating between 53% and 54%.
Token market developments
Avalanche (AVAX) gained approximately 5% over the past 24 hours after the New York Stock Exchange selected its blockchain technology to support clearing and settlement on a planned 24/7 tokenized securities platform. Despite the broader advance, AVAX was down 2.6% since midnight UTC. XDC Network (XDC), a layer-1 blockchain focused on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, emerged as the strongest performer in the CoinDesk 100 on Tuesday, climbing 7% since midnight UTC.
Privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies also lost some of the momentum they accumulated last week. Monero (XMR) dropped 7.8% over 24 hours, while Zcash (ZEC) declined 6.3%. The weakness came as investors shifted their attention toward blockchain projects focused on real-world asset infrastructure.
Hyperliquid (HYPE) began trading on Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, at 06:00 UTC. However, the listing failed to provide an immediate boost to the token, which declined 0.9% since midnight UTC and traded near $74.50. HYPE remains approximately 22% below its late-October high of $96.
Pieverse (PIEVERSE), a project designed to help AI agents execute transactions through messaging applications such as Telegram and WhatsApp, emerged as one of the day’s strongest performers, surging approximately 30%. The project recently hinted through an X post that it was working on an AI agent trading desk, although an official launch announcement has yet to be made.
Meanwhile, the CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season Index stood at 40 out of 100, highlighting the continued weakness across the broader altcoin market. The reading represents a notable decline from 62 recorded one month ago, suggesting that market performance remains heavily concentrated rather than broadly distributed across alternative cryptocurrencies.
