Bitcoin slides below $69,000 as ETF outflows hit 11-day streak

Bitcoin prices fell below $69,000 on Tuesday, touching their lowest level since early April, as a deepening institutional outflow streak, heavy liquidations, and stalling onchain capital compounded a week of deteriorating market structure. The drop of more than 4% on the day left bitcoin (BTC) trading as low as $68,971 on The Block's price page, with Ethereum (ETH) holding just below $1,975 and down 0.6% on the day. Analysts say both assets look increasingly exposed to the same macro headwinds weighing on the broader market.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have now recorded 11 consecutive sessions of net outflows, shedding $3.45 billion over that stretch. May's monthly outflow of $2.43 billion was the largest since November 2025. In the last 24 hours, 138,612 traders were liquidated across exchanges, with total liquidations reaching $742.29 million, according to CoinGlass. The largest single order was a $23.99 million BTCUSDT position on Binance — someone is having a rough Tuesday.

Onchain, the structural picture has weakened materially. Glassnode's weekly report, published Monday when bitcoin was trading at $71,300, found that the monthly realized cap change had collapsed 57% to near-zero, meaning fresh capital has effectively stopped entering the ecosystem. The spot Cumulative Volume Delta swung 143% into negative territory, with sellers firmly in control of price discovery. Only 59.8% of the bitcoin supply remains profitable, down from 61.5% the prior week, and the realized profit/loss ratio hit -0.9, with losses dominating on-chain activity. "The machine is running, but nobody's refueling it," Glassnode wrote in its weekly note.

In a separate note on Tuesday, Glassnode analysts said U.S. spot ETF flows have swung back to persistent net outflows, with the seven-day average now near the weakest levels of the current cycle. "The shift in flows has coincided with BTC retracing from $82K to $69K, highlighting materially softer demand," the firm wrote.

Ethereum is facing its own outflow problem. Simon-Peter Massabni, head of business development at XS.com, said spot Ethereum ETFs have recorded 14 consecutive sessions of net outflows, shedding approximately $712.56 million over that period — with the most recent session contributing $17.91 million. The $2,000 level is the key psychological threshold, Massabni said Tuesday. A sustained break below it would open the path toward $1,900 and potentially $1,800, in his view. Massabni also pointed to recent technical upgrades as medium-term structural positives but noted that the tailwinds from hard forks are not yet strong enough to offset the combined pressure of ETF outflows, elevated U.S. Treasury yields near 4.45%, and a dollar index holding around 99.

Wall Street and macro

Kyle Rodda, senior market analyst at Capital.com, said Wall Street's resilience — the S&P 500 closed at fresh record highs Monday on AI-driven optimism — was actively pulling institutional capital away from crypto. The ISM Manufacturing Survey jumped to 54, a four-year high, adding confidence to the U.S. economic outlook without meaningfully raising the probability of a Fed rate hike. As of Monday's close, the implied probability of a hike by year-end sat at roughly even money, per the futures curve.

Geopolitics added its own layer of noise to bitcoin's recent struggles. Iran reportedly halted indirect negotiations in response to Israeli operations in Lebanon, before Trump announced a coordinated suspension of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. The partial ceasefire provided modest relief to risk assets but left oil elevated and rate pressure intact. Friday's nonfarm payrolls report — consensus at 95,000 jobs added and unemployment at 4.3% — is the week's most consequential macro read for crypto. A strong print would extend the headwind, while a weak one could ease pressure without reversing the institutional rotation into equities, which is as much about AI opportunity as it is about risk aversion. Even the halving can't compete with a good NVIDIA earnings call these days.

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