Key takeaways:

• Large outflows from Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and mass liquidations show that the market is clearing out highly leveraged buyers.

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• Bitcoin options indicators show professional investors hedging against further price declines amid a sell-off in tech stocks.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $73,000 on Wednesday after briefly retesting $79,500 on Tuesday. This downturn reflected a decline in the tech-heavy Nasdaq index amid tender sales prospects for chipmaker AMD (AMD US) and disappointing U.S. employment data.

Traders are now fearing further price pressure on Bitcoin as spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen outflows of over $2.9 billion in twelve trading days.

The average daily net outflow of $243 million from US-listed Bitcoin ETFs since January 16 almost coincides with Bitcoin’s rejection of $98,000 on January 14. Another 26% correction in three weeks liquidated $3.25 billion worth of long BTC futures contracts. Unless buyers have posted additional margin, any leverage above 4x has already been eliminated.

Some market participants blamed the recent crash on the lingering fallout from the liquidation of the $19 billion company on October 10, 2025. The incident was reportedly triggered by a performance glitch in database queries on the Binance exchange, which resulted in transfer delays and incorrect data uploads. The exchange admitted guilt and paid over $283 million in compensation to injured users.

According to Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, the massive liquidations at Binance “could not be filled, but the liquidation engines are running anyway. This left the market makers wiped out and they were unable to recover.” Qureshi added that the October 2025 crash did not “permanently break the market,” but noted that market makers “will need time to recover.”

The analysis suggests that cryptocurrency exchanges’ liquidation mechanisms “are not designed to be self-stabilizing in the way that TradFi mechanisms work (circuit breakers, etc.)” and instead focus solely on minimizing the risk of insolvency. Qureshi notes that cryptocurrencies have been a “long series” of “bad things” that happen, but historically speaking, the market eventually recovers.

BTC Options Skew Signs That Traders Are Doubting the $72,100 Low

To determine whether professional investors have gone bearish after the crash, you need to evaluate the BTC options markets. During periods of stress, demand for put (put) instruments increases dramatically, pushing the delta deviation metric above the neutral threshold of 6%. Excessive demand for downside protection usually signals a lack of confidence on the part of the bulls.

The delta deviation of BTC options reached 13% on Wednesday, clearly indicating that professional investors are not convinced that the Bitcoin price has bottomed out at $72,100. This skepticism is partly due to concerns that the technology sector could suffer from increased competition as Google (GOOG US) and AMD bring their own artificial intelligence chips to market.

Related: Interest in Open Bitcoin Drops by $55 Billion in 30 Days – What’s Next for the BTC Price?

Another source of discomfort for Bitcoin holders are two unrelated and unfounded rumors. First, customer Galaxy Digital’s $9 billion sale of Bitcoin in 2025 was previously attributed to quantum computing risks. However, Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s head of research, denied the rumors in a post on X on Tuesday.

The second speculation concerns the solvency of Binance, which gained popularity after the exchange encountered technical problems that temporarily halted withdrawals on Tuesday. Current onchain metrics suggest that Bitcoin deposits on Binance remain relatively stable.

Given the current uncertainty about macroeconomic trends, many traders have decided to exit the cryptocurrency markets. This change makes it hard to predict whether Bitcoin spot ETF outflows will continue to put downward pressure on the price.