Sell ​​now! Retail investors take the lead! Spot Bitcoin ETF sees largest single-day capital outflow

On Thursday, financial markets rebounded across the board from the correction triggered by yesterday's Federal Reserve interest rate decision , with U.S. stocks and crypto markets rising, while the U.S. dollar index and the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell. As of the close, the S&P, Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes rose 0.91%, 0.85% and 1.51% respectively, the U.S. dollar index fell 0.38%, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell 105 basis points to 4.583%.

According to Bitpush data, Bitcoin rose all the way from the support level of $57,000 throughout the day, hitting a high of $59,590 in the afternoon, and then fell back to the support level of $59,000. As of the time of writing, BTC was trading at $59,090, up 3.2% in 24 hours.

Altcoin markets generally recovered, with all but a dozen of the top 200 tokens by market cap posting gains on Thursday. Arweave (AR) led the gains, up 22.6% to $34.88, followed by Jito (JTO) up 15.4% and Centrifuge (CFG) up 13.75%. Among the losers, ZetaChain fell 11.4%, Heder (HBAR) fell 4.11%, and Nervos Network (CKB) fell 2.7%.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap is currently $2.21 trillion, with Bitcoin’s dominance rate at 52.7%.

JPMorgan Chase: Retail investors are the main sellers

A report released by JPMorgan Chase said that due to the lack of positive catalysts and the disappearance of retail impulse, it is recommended to maintain a cautious stance on the cryptocurrency market in the short term .

The report said the market has seen significant profit-taking in recent weeks, with retail investors playing a larger role in the sell-off than institutional investors.

Investors pulled $558 million from the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF yesterday, the largest single-day outflow since the fund launched in mid-January, according to data from JPMorgan Chase and Bloomberg.

Yesterday’s outflows included $167 million in outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which has seen outflows of more than $17 billion since converting to an ETF in January.

BlackRock ’s iShares Bitcoin Trust recorded its first daily outflow of $36 million, and yesterday, Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund saw the largest outflow of any fund product, $189 million.

As for institutional investors, analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote: "It was mainly momentum traders such as commodity trading advisors (CTAs) or other quantitative funds that took profits on previous extreme long positions in Bitcoin and gold." Nevertheless, analysis of the futures market shows that other institutional investors outside of quantitative funds and CTAs have not reduced their positions as much.

Pay attention to BTC's weekly closing price

Analyst Bloodgood believes that the Fed’s statement yesterday emphasized the lack of further progress in achieving the 2% inflation target, but also pointed out that the risks of achieving employment and inflation targets have become better balanced over the past year. This is a typical example of mixed signals and the market has already priced in this.

“It was discussed that if we break below the previous ATH (around $69,000) we would see $60,000, which happened fairly quickly, and then we discussed that $60,000 had to hold or BTC would test levels well below $60,000,” Bloodgood said.

He added: “A series of lower highs and lower lows followed by a breakdown, driven in part by bearish ETF flows and falling stock markets. But whatever the story behind it, what matters is the technical support levels, and what matters now is Bitcoin’s weekly close. We are heading for an important weekly close this week, and a close below $60,000 would mean another step closer to the weekly support at $51,800, which would spell ultimate pain for the altcoin market.”

“On the other hand, if buyers step in, this will become a false retracement and we could see a big rally towards $65,000,” Bloodgood said. “Either way, it’s going to be interesting times ahead.”

Market analyst Rekt Capital noted that the current pullback occurred in the “post-halving ‘danger zone (purple)’” and warned that further declines are still possible based on historical price action.

Rekt Capital said: “Bitcoin has repeated its 2016 history again in this cycle, recently falling below the low of the current re-accumulation range. In 2016, the deviation was -17%, while in 2024, the deviation so far is -6%.”

He added that the downtrend in 2016 “lasted about 21 days after the halving before turning upwards,” meaning Bitcoin is still eight days away from being in the danger zone, so its price action could continue to be volatile.

MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe agreed, saying he expects Bitcoin to trade sideways for a while and that while there may be another 5-10% drop, “most of the decline is over.”