Bitcoin Slips Below $76,000 as $950M in Bullish Bets Get Wiped Out

Bitcoin broke below $76,000 on November 5, and the wreckage showed up fast in derivatives. CoinGlass counted 209,974 traders liquidated in 24 hours, with total forced closures hitting $1.08 billion. Longs took the beating: $950.95 million of that pile, or 87.7%, came from bullish positions, against just $133.14 million in shorts.

The cascade followed a fakeout. Bitcoin had climbed back above $80,000 after the U.S. midterm elections, then gave it all back as speculative assets sold off in unison. Technology stocks slid alongside crypto, with investors rethinking semiconductor earnings expectations, AI infrastructure spending and the regulatory picture after the vote. The 12-hour liquidation tally sat at $996.63 million, but the last hour and four-hour windows had shrunk to $8.66 million and $94.89 million, suggesting the worst of the forced selling had already passed at the time of the snapshot.

Binance carried the heaviest load, accounting for 46.3% of liquidations, and the single biggest order was a $10.94 million ETHUSDT long on that exchange. Bitcoin led asset-level losses at $281.16 million, with Ethereum at $172.74 million, Solana at $37.68 million, HYPE at $18.85 million and Dogecoin at $10.14 million. Ethereum and Hyperliquid underperformed Bitcoin across the session, while TRON held up noticeably better.

The ground was already soft before prices cracked. Farside Investors data showed substantial net withdrawals from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs across several sessions in late October and early November, sapping a key source of demand. Those outflows and the liquidation wave measure different things — net fund flows versus positions forcibly closed — but together they point to a market where institutional support had thinned out first.

One wild card lingers from October 29: a Binance security breach that the exchange estimated at roughly $6.3 billion in impact, with a pledge to cover affected users' losses. It has not been tied to Thursday's selloff as a direct trigger, and no single announcement has been pinned as the definitive catalyst. Technology-sector weakness set the backdrop; crypto-specific fragility did the rest.

What would actually signal a turnaround? According to the data reviewed, a return to positive spot Bitcoin ETF flows combined with steadier derivatives positioning. Cooling liquidations mean immediate margin pressure is easing — not that buyers are back. Until ETF inflows turn green, traders are stuck watching a market where the forced selling has slowed but the appetite hasn't returned.