Bitcoin steadies after dip to $76,300 as ETF outflows and midterm elections weigh on crypto

Bitcoin $BTC$77 050,41 edged up 0.2% to around $76,900 during, after dipping to around $76,300 in the European morning. The altcoin market was mixed, with ether $ETH$2 265,04 gaining 0.6% and the DeFi index (DFX) rising 0.5%, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index lost 0.8%.

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $399 million on Monday, their second straight day of outflows, according to Farside Investors, with BlackRock’s IBIT shedding $405 million, its largest daily outflow since June.

Binance customers have withdrawn a net $4.72 billion since the exchange reopened on Sunday, up from $3.64 billion that day, while new attacks hit crypto, including Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin, which saw $40 million drained from hot wallets.

Nasdaq futures rose 0.3% and Brent crude gained 1.3% to around $106 since midnight UTC, after the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.1% on Monday as tech stocks sold off again. U.S. voters go to the polls today for the midterm elections, with AMD reporting after the close and the jobs report due on Friday.

Derivatives positioning

• Churn, not positioning: Crypto futures trading volume gained 51% in 24 hours to $168.1 billion, while open interest (OI) fell 1.63% to $134.9 billion. Rising volume with flat to falling OI for a second straight day points to trading, not positional betting. That is understandable with the U.S. midterm elections today, early results, and media calls due tomorrow. Liquidations, the forced closing of leveraged positions, jumped 171% to $382.6 million. Market orders leaned toward selling, with 51.12% of taker volume on the sell side, against a largely even split yesterday.
• $ETH sees exits: OI on ether $ETH$2 265,04 futures fell 2.18% against a 0.83% price drop, so traders closed positions and money left. Bitcoin’s OI fell 1.20% against a 1.23% price drop, so no money moved either way. $ETH’s cumulative volume delta (CVD), the net of market-order buying and selling, is positive, while bitcoin’s is negative. Funding is positive for both and higher than yesterday, which means longs pay shorts more.
• $ZEC leads losses: Zcash ($ZEC) fell 7.57%, the biggest drop among the crypto coins on the list. Futures OI fell 6.13%, a bit less than the price. Its CVD is the most negative among the major coins, meaning market-order selling outweighed buying. Funding is positive but lower than 24 hours ago, meaning longs still pay shorts, just less.
• Funding stays positive: Most coins have positive funding, which means longs pay shorts. Cardano’s ADA, Sui’s SUI and $NEAR sit at the top of the range on major exchanges – Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid and Deribit. Hedera’s HBAR and Chainlink’s LINK are the most negative, but only on single exchanges, so no coin is negative everywhere.
• Market selling leads: On the 24-hour OI-normalized CVD chart, most coins are negative, which means market-order selling outweighed buying. Tron’s TRX is the most positive and $ZEC the most negative.
• $BTC options turn mixed: The most traded $BTC option in the last 24 hours was the Nov. 7 expiry call at the $78,000 strike, which is close to the spot price, a change from yesterday when puts led. The Nov. 27 $75,000 put came next, ahead of a Nov. 27 $100,000 call. Four of the six most traded options were still puts.
• Election premium builds: Implied volatility (IV), the size of price swings options traders expect, on the nearest-dated bitcoin options has jumped to about 51%, from about 43.5% for the Nov. 4 expiry yesterday. The nearest-dated ether options show the same, at about 59%. Short-term skew, the extra price puts carry over calls, remains well above longer-dated levels for both coins, so protection against a drop costs more in the near term.
• $ETH puts dominate: All six of the most traded $ETH options in the last 24 hours were puts, led by the Nov. 6 $1,900 put, about 16% below spot.

Token talk

• Lighter (LIT), the perpetual futures exchange token, gained 2.3% as the venue prepares to apply this month to the CFTC for registrations as a trading venue and a clearing house, according to founder Vladimir Novakovski, though a filing would only start a review.
• Near $NEAR$3,8435 slipped another 0.9%, extending a 7% fall over 24 hours that left it one of the worst performers in the CoinDesk 100, even after its House of Stake governance body voted on Monday to cut maximum annual token issuance to 1.6% from 2.5%.
• Zcash ($ZEC) rose 1.2% to around $1,146, after falling around 8% from Monday morning in a dispute over its community grants program, with the NU7 network upgrade expected this week.
• DeFi held up better than most of the market, with aave AAVE$127,83 rising 1.5% and uniswap (UNI) 0.8%, even as a string of new attacks hit crypto since Friday.
• CoinMarketCap’s altcoin season index is unchanged at 46/100, while its fear and greed index slipped to 34/100, in “fear,” from 36.