Bitcoin Falls With Tech on Nvidia Jitters and ETF Outflows
The sell-off in Nvidia and other tech stocks also weighed on Bitcoin and Ether. At the same time, nearly $300 million flowed out of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, with BlackRock’s IBIT back in the red.
Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin fell 0.7% on Wednesday to about $73,400, while Ether and the CoinDesk 80 Index also closed lower.
- The selling pressure followed weakness in tech, especially after a sharp drop in Nvidia in premarket trading.
- U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs posted a fifth straight day of outflows, with $299.9 million in net outflows on Wednesday.
Bitcoin fell 0.7% since midnight UTC on Wednesday to about $73,400 (€66,000). That put the price in line with the sell-off in tech stocks. Ether dropped 0.5% to around $2,044 (€1,840), and the CoinDesk 80 Index lost 1%. Over 24 hours, Bitcoin was down 0.8% and Ether was down 0.7%.
Nvidia Pulls the Market Lower
The pressure came mainly from Nvidia. The stock fell about 7% in premarket trading after the New York Times reported that CEO Jensen Huang may have had a relationship with a company employee, and the Wall Street Journal wrote that the board is preparing to remove him. Nvidia itself has not announced any decision on that yet.
Weakness in tech spilled over into the broader market. Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.6%, giving back part of Wednesday’s rally, which had earlier been boosted by CoreWeave. The broader tech sector was already under pressure, which weakened risk sentiment in stocks and crypto at the same time.
Bitcoin ETFs See Money Flow Out
Demand for crypto also stayed weak. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $299.9 million (€270 million) on Wednesday, according to SoSoValue. That marked the fifth straight day of outflows and brought the total since November 5 to about $1.44 billion (€1.3 billion). BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $269.7 million (€242 million) of that and logged its ninth straight session of withdrawals.
That ongoing outflow matters for European crypto watchers because spot ETFs are an important gauge of institutional demand in the U.S. If those inflows dry up, it can also affect broader sentiment around Bitcoin and other major tokens, even if it does not by itself say anything about the short-term price direction. Earlier, weak ETF demand already showed how quickly sentiment can turn when inflows dry up.
Traders Watch the Fed and Claims
Investors will later watch the U.S. weekly jobless claims at 13:30 UTC. In addition, the market is following every signal from Nvidia’s board. The Fed meets on December 8 and 9, while CME FedWatch is pricing in about a 90% chance of a rate hike.
Trading in the derivatives market cooled further. Futures volume fell 20.64% over 24 hours to $168.6 billion (€152 billion), and open interest dropped 2.92% to $125.8 billion (€113 billion). Liquidations also eased, although long positions still made up 64.5% of the total, showing that long positions were the ones getting stopped out the most.