Bitcoin is trading around $75,600, barely changed over 24 hours, after a violent selloff last week pushed the largest cryptocurrency to its lowest level since August and left it pinned beneath its 50-day moving average with no clear catalyst to lift it back above $80,000.
The token briefly touched $81,000 on Nov. 4 before sliding back to roughly $75,000, and at one point on Nov. 6 it fell to about $73,700. Ethereum has slipped toward $2,120 to $2,220, XRP broke below $1.10 during the worst of the move, and Solana dropped under $90.
The immediate trigger was leverage. More than $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, with about $913 million of that from longs, according to derivatives data. Much of the damage occurred within roughly six hours, turning a soft market into a cascade: falling prices hit liquidation levels, exchanges automatically sold those positions, and the resulting supply pushed prices low enough to wipe out the next group of traders.
Why the bounce keeps failing
On-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant attributes the failure of each rebound to an absence of sustained spot buying rather than to any single shock. The roughly $290 million of short positions liquidated during the Nov. 4 rally generated buying pressure, but that is not the same as new money entering the market.
Spot data backs that up. The 30-day average net spot volume delta stands at about minus $28 million on Binance and minus $9.4 million on Coinbase, meaning sellers have outweighed buyers on the two largest venues. On Nov. 6, short-term holders moved roughly 32,695 BTC to exchanges while underwater on their positions, a transfer that does not prove selling took place but signals that supply was being staged.
Institutional demand has weakened in parallel. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $411.9 million on Nov. 6, of which about $403 million came from BlackRock's IBIT, according to Farside Investors. Fidelity's FBTC took in about $42.8 million the same day. Across the five sessions through Nov. 6, net redemptions totaled about $1.28 billion, and IBIT alone has posted five straight days of outflows amounting to roughly $1.21 billion.
Liquidity available to flow into crypto is also shrinking. Stablecoin supply has contracted about 4.9% over the past 30 days to roughly $292.3 billion, a sign that the pool of sidelined cash is draining rather than building.
Two gauges that explain the pattern
CryptoQuant points to two indicators that frame the problem. The first, Apparent Demand Growth, estimates how much bitcoin the market has absorbed by accounting for new issuance and the movement of previously dormant coins. Its one-year reading has weakened while the 30-day values remain negative, indicating that price rebounds are not being matched by a durable pickup in absorption.
The second is the Coinbase Premium Index, which tracks the gap between bitcoin prices on Coinbase and Binance and serves as a proxy for U.S. buying appetite. The gauge spent much of the 2025 bull run in positive territory but has stayed negative through most of 2026, including during the August and September rallies. Even as bitcoin climbed from the $60,000s back into the $80,000s, U.S. spot demand never strengthened enough to flip the measure.
Some large wallets do appear to be accumulating, and coins have moved off exchanges. CryptoQuant cautions that exchange withdrawals do not prove an intent to hold, and that transfers alone are not evidence of fresh purchases.
Regulatory and geopolitical noise on top
Sentiment was already fragile before the liquidation wave. Traders are weighing the possibility that a Democratic-controlled Congress takes a harder line on digital-asset regulation following the midterm elections, and the market is still absorbing the fallout from a recent Binance security breach.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, the incoming chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has demanded records from Binance and Tether as part of an inquiry into alleged illicit crypto flows and possible conflicts involving the Trump administration and crypto firms. The companies were told to produce the requested material by Jan. 4, 2027, or the committee could pursue other measures. The request does not amount to a new charge against either company, but it landed on a market already primed to sell.
Geopolitical headlines added another layer, with uncertainty around U.S.-Iran negotiations cited as a factor in overnight volatility alongside turmoil in Nvidia and technology shares. Oil-market reporting by Monday morning had already turned more optimistic about the talks, suggesting the Iran thread was a volatility trigger rather than the root cause.
What would change the picture
Technically, bitcoin is caught between two levels. It sits about 7.3% below its 50-day moving average near $81,765 and roughly 3.5% above its 200-day average near $73,170, a cushion thinner than the average daily trading range of recent weeks. The coin has not closed below the 200-day since Aug. 19, and a decisive break of the $73,000 to $74,000 zone would make the current correction considerably more dangerous. Holding that area keeps another relief bounce on the table.
CryptoQuant's checklist for a sustainable uptrend is specific: a recovery in 30-day Apparent Demand Growth, a sustained move by the Coinbase Premium Index into positive territory, and a resumption of net inflows into U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs. Short covering alone will not do it.
For investors, the takeaway is that the past month has been a retracement inside a range rather than a fresh leg lower, but the range is being defended by sellers. Bitcoin is still about 20% above its Aug. 14 close and roughly 40% below its October 2025 record of $126,080, and it has underperformed neither dramatically nor impressively against a board where Ethereum is about 55% off its high and BNB about 49%. Capital has been leaving the edges of the market first, which is why bitcoin's dominance has held near 60%.
