Bitcoin fell 0.5% to approximately $81,400 on Tuesday, despite spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. attracting $526.6 million in net inflows on Monday, their strongest daily total in nearly a month. At the same time, renewed concerns over AI spending sent South Korea’s Kospi lower and weighed on investor sentiment.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded near $81,400, marking a 0.5% decline since midnight UTC. The pullback came even as U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $526.6 million in inflows on Monday, the largest one-day total in almost four weeks.

Asian equity markets weakened, led by South Korea. The Kospi dropped 3.73% to its lowest closing level since April 7, as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics shares fell amid fresh concerns about AI investment and the outlook for chipmakers. Nasdaq 100 futures also declined 0.31%.

Most major cryptocurrencies moved lower alongside Bitcoin. Ether (ETH) slipped 0.9% to around $2,385, while the CoinDesk 80 index (CD80) lost 0.34%. The Bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 5 index (CD5) declined 0.33%. Decentralized finance tokens performed worse than the broader market, with the DFX index falling 1.2%, the largest drop among CoinDesk’s benchmark indexes.

Brent crude hovered around $110 per barrel as Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia kept potential supply disruptions in focus. Roughly 70 S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report earnings this week, including General Motors before Tuesday’s market open and United Airlines after the close.

Derivatives positioning

Bitcoin open interest on Coinalyze declined 0.6% over 24 hours to $27.4 billion. The aggregate funding rate stood at about 8.8% on an annualized basis, while Ether’s funding rate was approximately 3.9%, pointing to a bullish tilt among ETH traders.

Long positions accounted for around 55% of Bitcoin positions, with Coinalyze reporting a long-to-short ratio of 1.24. Data covering Binance’s top traders showed a similar preference for bullish positions, with the BTC-USDT position ratio at 1.78, according to CoinGlass.

Options markets showed increased demand for protection against further price declines. Put options on Deribit traded at more than twice the volume of calls over the previous 24 hours. The October 30 $80,000 put was the most actively traded contract.

Across different expiries, out-of-the-money puts carried premiums of 2.5 to 4 volatility points over comparable calls. This bearish skew indicates that traders are paying more to hedge against downside risks, although open interest remains concentrated in October 30 call options with strike prices between $90,000 and $100,000.

CoinGlass recorded $155.1 million in crypto liquidations over 24 hours, a 54.7% decrease from the previous day. Long positions made up approximately 69% of liquidations in CoinMarketCap’s data. Coinalyze recorded about $30 million in liquidations for Bitcoin and a similar amount for Ether, together accounting for roughly half of its $120.6 million total.

Token market movements

Celestia (TIA) gained 2.2% to approximately $0.63, making it the strongest performer on the CoinDesk 100 index (CD100). The token has risen around 42% over the past month.

The rally followed Celestia’s October 1 benchmark, which showed its Fibre scaling system averaging 3.07 terabits per second. Derivatives exchange Derive also selected Celestia for data availability in its V3 release. The next event attracting traders’ attention is an October 31 unlock of 5.58 million TIA tokens, according to Tokenomist.

The Sandbox (SAND) led losses across the CD100, dropping 4.5% to roughly $0.06. The decline erased part of its approximately 30% gain over the previous month. Its rally began after South Korean exchanges Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone removed trading cautions imposed in August following a bridge exploit.

Layer-2 tokens also weakened. Arbitrum (ARB) declined 3.6%, while Starknet (STRK) fell 3.2%. Despite the latest losses, Starknet remains up roughly 29% over the month after a sharp rally on October 9 and 10. That advance followed the network’s announcement that it was considering becoming an independent, quantum-resistant layer-1 blockchain by 2027.

DeFi assets surrendered some of Monday’s gains, with Uniswap (UNI) down 2.3% at around $7.14 and Morpho (MORPHO) falling 2.5%. UNI has dropped approximately 20% over the past month, even though its fee switch helped protocol revenue reach $14.81 million in September. Token Terminal reported that this was the strongest monthly revenue figure since Uniswap began retaining fees.

Ethena (ENA) lost another 1.9%, extending its decline to roughly 30% from a late-September high near $0.29. USDe supply stood at approximately $4.7 billion, down from a peak close to $15 billion. The current supply remains well below the $7.5 billion threshold that would trigger ENA buybacks.