The number of white knights is decreasing, Bitcoin falls into bear market! ETF withdraws nearly 900 million US dollars, the second largest outflow in history.

With the recent wave of risk aversion sentiment sweeping the global financial markets, high-valued US tech stocks, bitcoin, and other risky assets seem to be in a downward spiral. Investors have withdrawn nearly $900 million from ETF funds invested in bitcoin, causing bitcoin to further fall below the $100,000 mark, with the decline seemingly deepening. These bitcoin ETFs traded on the US stock market have been one of the hottest investment sectors in the global stock market this year. Therefore, in the eyes of experienced investors in the crypto community, the core point of this bitcoin downtrend is not how strong the short-selling forces are, but the fact that the "followers" who used to speculate on bitcoin are disappearing - in other words, the short-term speculators who used to "take over bitcoin" are decreasing (also described as "demand collapsing at the top"). When there are not enough "followers" in the global largest market value cryptocurrency market, and it falls below the important $100,000 mark, the decline naturally deepens. Bitcoin, the largest market value cryptocurrency asset, fell by as much as 2.8% on Friday, dropping below $96,000, and then slightly narrowing the decline, hovering around $97,070 per coin. However, it is still more than 20% lower than its all-time high set in early October, falling into the so-called "bear market area." According to CoinGecko's data, the global cryptocurrency market has been under pressure after experiencing a liquidation scale of up to $19 billion on October 10th. This erased over $1 trillion of the total market value of all cryptocurrencies globally. According to CoinGlass data, the liquidation trend continues, with over $1 billion in leveraged cryptocurrency positions being forcibly liquidated in the past 24 hours. At the same time, trading-type funds investing in bitcoin (i.e., bitcoin ETFs) in the US stock market saw net outflows of approximately $870 million on Thursday, marking the second-largest single-day redemption since its inception in early January 2024. As shown in the statistical data above, US bitcoin ETFs recorded the second-highest single-day net outflow in history. Earlier this week, the strong rebound in the US stock market due to the official end of the longest government shutdown in US history briefly pushed stock prices higher, but they quickly fell back. As tech stocks and bitcoin often follow a similar trajectory during periods of risk aversion, cryptocurrencies collectively fell, with the decline being much greater than the Nasdaq 100 index. With key economic data delayed significantly, traders are questioning whether the Federal Reserve has enough reason to cut interest rates. This "reassessment process" in the market is putting new pressure on higher-risk sectors with overvalued tech stocks and extremely sensitive risky assets like cryptocurrencies. In addition, the market is also concerned that as the US government ends the shutdown, various economic data including CPI and non-farm payrolls will be released intensively. If multiple data points do not meet market expectations, selling of risky assets including cryptocurrencies may escalate. "The current sell-off of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is completely synchronized with other risky assets, but due to the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies often being higher, the decline in cryptocurrency assets, including bitcoin, is larger," said Max Gokhman, Chief Investment Officer of the investment solutions team at asset management giant Franklin Templeton. "Until deeper global asset management institutions expand beyond bitcoin and Ethereum, cryptocurrency assets will maintain a high beta coefficient for macro risks." Liquidity in the cryptocurrency market has also significantly tightened. According to data from Kaiko, market depth - the ability of the market to absorb large transactions without significant fluctuations - has decreased by about 30% from its peak this year. The benchmark measuring bitcoin market depth above shows that trading volume within a 1% range of the midpoint has contracted since the crash on October 10th. "With bitcoin's returns turning negative since Trump's re-election as US president, and the overall cryptocurrency market cap returning to the levels at the beginning of the year, there isn't much technical support between the current position and the range above $90,000. Emotions are likely to remain low until new strong catalysts emerge," said Augustine Fan, a partner at SignalPlus. In the options market, traders focusing on cryptocurrencies are increasingly inclined to lay out forward-looking strategies for volatile movements. Senior analyst Nick Ruck from LVRG Research stated that the demand for neutral hedging options strategies such as strangles and straddles is increasing.