Bitcoin fell 6% to $75,700 on Thursday, a day after reaching $80,000, as a sharp selloff in AI stocks spread across Wall Street. The decline erased the coin’s post-election rally and triggered heavy losses among leveraged traders.
Ether slid more than 7% to $2,247, according to The Block. CoinGlass data cited by The Block shows $1.1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated in 24 hours across almost 211,000 positions. The heaviest losses came in a single four-hour window, when $879.92 million was liquidated, including $818.90 million from long positions betting on higher prices.
Liquidations are forced exits from borrowed positions and are distinct from money leaving Bitcoin ETFs, which track cash moving into or out of the funds.
ETF Flows Show a Split Between Fidelity and BlackRock
Spot Bitcoin ETFs had already seen outflows before Thursday’s drop. FarSide data shows outflows of $643.2 million on October 30, $398.6 million on November 2, and $115.6 million on November 3, totaling $1.16 billion over three trading days. Cryptopolitan had earlier reported a single-day outflow of $487 million in October.
The pattern broke on November 4, when the ETFs posted a net inflow of $74.6 million. However, the two largest funds moved in opposite directions: Fidelity’s FBTC took in $236.7 million, while BlackRock’s IBIT saw $201.2 million leave.
Tech Stocks Drag Risk Assets Lower
The Nasdaq closed Thursday down 5.5% at 24,315.00, now 11.9% below its October peak. The S&P 500 lost 4.4%, and Nvidia fell 9.3%. Investors are questioning when costly AI projects will start to pay off, with high borrowing costs and possible post-election limits on data centers adding to concerns.
“Coming into this earnings season, there were worries that AI spending was too much,” Swissquote analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya told Reuters. J.P. Morgan’s Michael Cembalest reported an 8% drop in hedge funds’ gross long-short exposure and about $4 trillion in AI-related off-balance-sheet commitments.
Bitcoin has been moving more closely with tech stocks. Foundry Labs measured a 0.41 correlation between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq-100 tracker QQQ over 63 days, and found that public Bitcoin miners trade more like AI infrastructure stocks. S&P Global has also observed Bitcoin tracking stocks when investors pull back from risk. Still, the link does not prove the AI selloff caused Thursday’s Bitcoin drop.
Trading firm Wintermute called Wednesday’s rebound short-lived optimism. The firm named $73,000 and $68,000 as levels to watch and said it wants Bitcoin to hold above $80,000 before turning more positive.
Paul Howard of Wincent pointed to politics as another factor, saying recent Democratic gains in Congress could make it harder to pass the Clarity Act.
ETF data for November 5 is still incomplete, as several issuers have not yet reported. Those figures will show whether the November 4 inflow marked a return of demand or a pause in outflows.
