Chip sell-off triggers $1B crypto liquidations, pushes Bitcoin below $76k

Market Snapshot: Price, Sentiment, Correlations

• Prices at Friday morning on Binance: Bitcoin $75,700 from $80,547 Thursday start; Ethereum $2,218 down 8.2%; XRP $1.18 down 9.7%; Solana $89.22 down 6.9%.
• Crypto Fear & Greed Index: 28, down from 50, signaling Fear.
• Equities trigger: Philadelphia Semiconductor Index −12.2%; Nvidia −9.3%; AMD −17.3%; Nasdaq −5.5%.
• Crypto equities: Strategy −9.3%; Coinbase −9.7%.

Mechanism: Chip Sell-Off Meets Leverage

• Timeline: US market open 14:30 UTC; Bitcoin broke within the hour. The 15:00 UTC Binance candle fell from $78,288 to $75,568 with $513 million volume, the day’s busiest hour.
• Macro narrative: Stock rout linked by Yahoo Finance to Democrats’ midterm win and implications for AI infrastructure spending and regulation. Chipmakers, leading AI beneficiaries, led declines.
• Leverage flush: CoinGlass reported $1.03 billion in crypto liquidations in 24 hours: 89.4% were longs ($924.94 million) across 199,365 traders. Bitcoin longs lost $255.88 million; Ether longs $163.83 million. Largest single liquidation: $10.94 million ETHUSDT on Binance.

ETF Flows: Broad-Based Outflows

• US spot Bitcoin ETFs: $430.2 million net outflows Thursday. All 12 funds saw redemptions.
• Largest outflows: Fidelity FBTC $199.87 million; BlackRock IBIT $104.97 million.

Grayscale’s GBTC lost $49.90 million, Franklin Templeton’s EZBC $32.92 million, VanEck’s HODL $23.64 million and ARKB $18.90 million.

• Reversal of prior day: Wednesday saw $74.6 million net inflows, the only inflow day month-to-date.
• Month-to-date: First four November sessions total $869.8 million outflows, following $515.9 million outflows in October.
• Rotation detail: Fidelity FBTC took in $236.7 million Wednesday while IBIT saw outflows, then FBTC reversed most of that Thursday.

Technical Levels: BTC Loses 200-Day EMA

• Close: $76,088, below the 200-day EMA at $76,536, which had acted as support during October.
• Overhead: 50-day EMA at $79,822; next resistance above is $81,971, the pre–Binance hack high.
• Support: First at $74,968 swing low. Next at $72,598, the 50% retracement of the July–September rally.

BTCUSDT 1D chart. Source: TradingView

Scenarios

• Rebound: Daily close back above $76,536 opens $79,822.
• Range: Hold between $74,968 and $76,536 keeps price capped under the 200-day EMA.
• Sell-off: Daily close below $74,968 targets $72,598.

Derivatives Positioning

• Funding: Bitcoin perpetual funding rates remain slightly positive on OKX, indicating long positioning not fully cleared despite significant liquidations.

Key Dependency

• Correlation to US tech: If chip stocks stabilize at Friday’s US open, Bitcoin may reclaim the 200-day EMA. If weakness persists, $74,968 is the threshold between a contained drawdown and a deeper correction.