Bitcoin remained close to $74,000 as unexpectedly high U.S. inflation figures increased the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate hike to nearly 90%. At the same time, spot Bitcoin ETF withdrawals continued for a fourth consecutive day, while forced liquidations across cryptocurrency derivatives markets accelerated.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded around $74,000 with minimal movement since midnight UTC, recovering after briefly touching $72,700 on Tuesday. Ether (ETH) also held relatively steady near $2,050. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index declined 1.2%, while the CoinDesk 80 Index recorded a smaller loss of 0.3%.

The lack of momentum in digital assets contrasted with improving sentiment in traditional markets. Nasdaq-100 futures advanced 1.7% early Wednesday after AI cloud computing company CoreWeave delivered better-than-expected earnings.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $95 million in net withdrawals on Tuesday, extending their outflow streak to four trading sessions, according to SoSoValue. BlackRock’s IBIT contributed $78 million to the total, marking its eighth consecutive day of outflows.

Meanwhile, expectations for another Federal Reserve rate increase strengthened after U.S. consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, exceeding economists’ projections. CME FedWatch data showed that traders were assigning roughly a 90% probability to a rate hike at the central bank’s Dec. 8–9 meeting. Over the previous 24 hours, Bitcoin declined 0.7%, while Ether dropped 1.7%.

U.S. bond trading was suspended Wednesday for the Veterans Day holiday.

Crypto Derivatives: Liquidations and Positioning

Liquidation activity accelerates: Cryptocurrency futures liquidations surged 288% to $725 million within 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, following the latest U.S. inflation report. Trading volume increased 24% to $204.8 billion, while open interest fell 1% to $127.2 billion, suggesting that traders were unwinding positions amid heightened market uncertainty.

Bitcoin derivatives show weakening bullish momentum: Bitcoin open interest decreased 0.2%, while its price declined 0.6%. Funding rates remained positive at 0.0078%, representing an annualized rate of 8.6%, below the 0.01% reference level. Long-position holders continued paying shorts, but the relatively low rate indicated less aggressive bullish positioning. The taker buy/sell ratio stood at 0.97, reflecting stronger selling pressure. Bitcoin liquidations totaled $200.5 million, with long positions responsible for 85% of the losses. The annualized basis for December futures remained between 5% and 7%.

Ether records larger liquidation losses: Ether futures liquidations reached $253 million, exceeding Bitcoin’s total despite Ether’s open interest of $25.2 billion being approximately half the size of Bitcoin’s. Ether open interest declined 3.6%, compared with a 1.7% drop in its price, indicating that traders were withdrawing capital from the market. Its funding rate remained positive at 0.0059%.

Altcoin traders reduce exposure: Zcash (ZEC) recorded $40.3 million in liquidations, the highest among altcoins, as its price declined approximately 13%. Its open interest contracted 10.5%. XRP open interest dropped 3.8% against a 1.8% price decline, while HYPE open interest decreased 3% compared with a 2.2% price loss. The larger contractions in open interest suggest that market participants were actively closing positions.

Traditional financial assets gain derivatives attention: Four of the 10 most actively traded perpetual futures contracts over the past 24 hours were connected to traditional financial markets, according to Coinalyze. The Direxion 3x Semiconductor ETF (SOXL) generated $8.4 billion in volume, followed by SanDisk at $4.4 billion, gold at $2.4 billion, and Nvidia at $2 billion. SOXL trading activity surpassed that of Solana and XRP. Nvidia perpetual futures open interest also jumped 50% to $411 million after the stock declined 5.5% on Tuesday.

Put options attract stronger demand: Bitcoin put options expiring between Nov. 12 and Nov. 27 recorded 1.5 times the trading volume of calls on Deribit. Eight of the 10 most active contracts were puts, with strike prices concentrated between $69,000 and $74,000. The Nov. 27 $69,000 put led trading activity. Friday’s expiration was dominated by far out-of-the-money calls, with the largest open interest at $81,000 (8,306 BTC) and $84,000 (5,231 BTC).

Implied volatility holds steady: At-the-money implied volatility remained near 36% for Nov. 27 options and 38% for Nov. 13 contracts. However, 25-delta puts carried a premium of four to five volatility points over calls, indicating that traders continued paying more for protection against potential price declines.

Crypto Token Developments

Telegram’s growing wallet ecosystem returned to the spotlight as gram (GRAM), the renamed toncoin, led the CoinDesk 100 with a gain of approximately 5% since midnight UTC. The advance followed Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s announcement that more than 700,000 wallets had been created within the messaging application over a 48-hour period.

Zcash (ZEC) faced significant selling pressure, falling approximately 14% over 24 hours as leveraged long positions were liquidated and investors pulled funds from Grayscale’s Zcash ETF. Monero (XMR) moved higher, gaining around 2% since midnight UTC.

Midnight (NIGHT), the privacy-focused blockchain linked to Cardano, advanced approximately 5% after its Ledger 9 upgrade went live on the mainnet earlier this week.

The wider altcoin market continued to struggle as Bitcoin maintained its dominant position. CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index dropped to 40 out of 100 from 49 last Thursday, remaining well below the 75 level generally associated with the beginning of an altcoin season.

Bitcoin’s share of the total cryptocurrency market increased to 60.5%, up from 59.9% on Friday, highlighting the continued preference for BTC over alternative digital assets. Meanwhile, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index remained at 26, indicating that investors were still operating in a broader fear-driven market environment.