Bitcoin dips with Nvidia as ETF outflows reach day five

Bitcoin $BTC$73,512.58 is down 0.7% since midnight UTC at around $73,400, hovering near the day’s low as a selloff in tech stocks spreads. Ether $ETH$2,031.88 is down 0.5% at around $2,044 and the CoinDesk 80 Index is down 1%. Over 24 hours, bitcoin has lost 0.8% and ether 0.7%.

Nvidia is the driver, with shares down around 7% in pre-market trading after the New York Times reported that CEO Jensen Huang had a relationship with a company executive and the Wall Street Journal reported that the board is preparing to remove him. Nvidia has not announced a decision. Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.6%, giving back part of Wednesday’s CoreWeave-led rally.

Crypto’s lack of demand isn’t helping as U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $299.9 million on Wednesday, according to SoSoValue, a fifth straight day of outflows that adds up to around $1.44 billion since Nov. 5. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $269.7 million of that, its ninth straight session of redemptions.

Initial jobless claims land at 13:30 UTC, and traders are also watching for any decision from Nvidia’s board. The Fed meets Dec. 8-9, with CME FedWatch pricing around a 90% chance of a hike.

Derivatives positioning

• Crypto futures trading slows: Over 24 hours, futures volume fell 20.64% to $168.6 billion and open interest (OI) fell 2.92% to $125.8 billion, so trading cooled and money left the market as positions were closed. Liquidations fell 63.67% to $263.7 million, though longs made up 64.5% of the total, meaning more long positions were forced out than shorts.
• $BTC futures volume drops: The $BTC futures market has seen capital outflows, with OI down 2.9% against a 0.6% price drop. Volume fell 27.6%, and cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative, meaning market orders skewed toward selling. Funding stays moderately positive, meaning longs pay shorts. $BTC also logged the largest liquidations of any coin at $62.9 million.
• $ETH OI drops slightly: $ETH futures also saw capital outflows, though smaller, with OI down 1.8% against a 0.6% price drop. Volume fell 37.2%, the sharpest drop among the majors, so trading thinned considerably. CVD is flat, meaning market-order buying and selling balanced out, and funding is moderately positive, meaning longs pay shorts.
• $XMR funding overheats: The annualized average funding rate for privacy-focused monero ($XMR) perpetual futures across exchanges is approximately 80%, well above every other coin and still climbing since early morning, so longs are paying shorts heavily. Most other coins, including $BTC and $ETH, are moderately positive, so longs pay shorts, but not extremely. $GRAM, formerly Toncoin, is the exception on the negative side, meaning shorts pay longs.
• CVD leans to selling: OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative for most major coins, including bitcoin, meaning a bias for market-order selling. This indicates a bearish sentiment in the broader market. $GRAM, NEAR and $ZEC are positive ones.
• $DOGE and $ZEC futures see large capital outflows: Capital left $DOGE (Dogecoin) futures, with OI down 5.9% against a 1.5% price drop. $ZEC saw the same, with OI down 5.4% against a 0.4% price drop. $ZEC’s CVD is positive, so market orders skewed toward buying even as capital left.
• $BTC options show put skew: $BTC options skew, the premium of puts over calls, stays positive and edged up to about 11% at one week. At the same time, one-week implied volatility, the price swings options traders expect, eased to about 35% from 38% on Tuesday. Four of the six most-traded contracts are calls, led by the $80,000 call expiring Dec. 25. The other two are puts, at the $73,000 and $74,000 strikes expiring Nov. 13.
• Put skew intact in $ETH: One-week skew edged up to about 12%, so puts still carry a premium. Four of the six most-traded contracts are puts, though the busiest is the $2,200 call expiring Nov. 20.

Token talk

• Gram ($GRAM), the renamed toncoin, is on top of the CoinDesk 100 for a second day, up 5.2% since midnight UTC, as Telegram’s wallet push keeps drawing attention. Founder Pavel Durov said earlier this week that more than 700,000 wallets were created in the app within 48 hours.
• Zcash ($ZEC) is bouncing, up 2.4% after a rough start to the week. A draft proposal would pull 50,000 $ZEC, around $50 million, out of the Zcash Community Grants treasury, with holders voting Nov. 16 to 30.
• Render (RENDER), the decentralized GPU network, is down 3.1% as Nvidia slides.
• Avalanche (AVAX) is up 2.0% as traders keep digesting Monday’s news that a clearing firm tied to a planned NYSE-affiliated tokenized securities platform will use its blockchain, pending regulatory approval.
• DeFi is the soft spot. The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index (DFX) is down 1.6%, with aave AAVE$115.44, ether.fi (ETHFI) and ethena (ENA) all down between 2.5% and 3.3%. Monero ($XMR) is weaker still, down 4.5%, the worst performer in the CoinDesk 100 although there’s no obvious catalyst for either.
• Altcoin season looks a long way off. CoinMarketCap’s index is at 39 out of 100, down from 40 yesterday and far below the 75 that signals one, and the fear and greed index is at 26, in fear territory.