Bitcoin breaks below $76,000 as $250M in leveraged bets get wiped out

Bitcoin punched below $76,000 for the first time since mid-September, and the fall came with carnage in leveraged crypto. Roughly $250 million in positions were liquidated as the price slipped through the mid-$76,000s across November 3 and 4. At points it traded between $76,400 and $76,700, down around 2% on the day.

The wreckage skewed bullish. Long positions made up about 70% of the liquidations, so the traders flushed out were mostly the ones betting on higher prices. Broader tallies put total crypto liquidations near $366 million, with about $100 million tied to Bitcoin trades specifically. Market data suggests individual positions getting cleaned out rather than any deeper structural crack.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs had already sounded the alarm. US funds posted $398.6 million in net outflows on November 2, the session right before Bitcoin broke down. BlackRock's IBIT alone bled $405.3 million — more than the net total, which means other funds actually pulled in money while the giant shed it.

That IBIT exit followed earlier, bigger withdrawals from the fund, and the pattern is being read as institutional appetite cooling amid murky macro conditions and rate uncertainty. The Nasdaq added pressure, dropping 1.1% in a single session and taking tech equities and digital assets down together.

Now the technical map has flipped. The $77,000 to $77,500 band had been pegged as key near-term support; with Bitcoin trading beneath it, that zone has turned from a floor into a ceiling. There's an upside to the long-liquidation purge — it clears out overextended bullish leverage that could have fueled another cascade. But ETF flows are the signal that matters more over the medium term. Liquidations are a one-day event; sustained institutional selling through products like IBIT reflects a slower, more deliberate shift in how big investors view the asset.