Bitcoin Drops Despite Inflation Data as Spot ETFs Record First Two-Day August Outflow

Bitcoin slipped below $63,000 as spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded back-to-back net outflows for the first time since late July, erasing the cryptocurrency’s gains from the previous week.

BTC fell 1.14% since midnight UTC as renewed ETF withdrawals and a lack of fresh bullish catalysts weighed on market sentiment.

According to SoSoValue, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $192 million in net outflows, extending withdrawals into a second consecutive day.

Bitcoin is now trading at its lowest level since Aug. 3 after giving up last week’s advance. Ether also declined 0.73%, while several altcoins continued to show greater resilience than the leading cryptocurrencies.

U.S. stocks moved higher on Thursday after producer price inflation came in at 4.7%, below expectations. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both gained following the data, while futures remained slightly positive.

Derivatives Market Shows Growing Bearish Signals

Futures activity remains focused on position adjustments: The long-short taker ratio is still broadly balanced, with long positions accounting for about half of the flow. However, 24-hour trading volume is growing significantly faster than open interest, suggesting traders are mostly rotating existing positions rather than establishing substantial new exposure.

Bitcoin Cash attracts fresh short positions: BCH recorded the largest rise in open interest over the past day, with OI increasing 10% to 1.64 million tokens as its spot price fell 3%. The combination points to traders building short positions.

Negative annualized funding rates reinforce the bearish signal. BCH’s 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta also remained negative, showing that sellers were using market orders more aggressively. Together, these indicators suggest expectations of further downside.

Bitcoin OI climbs as price falls: Bitcoin open interest increased more than 3% to around 765,000 BTC despite the decline in price. CVD remained negative, although annualized funding rates were still slightly positive.

HBAR shows the strongest bearish bias: HBAR posted the most negative 24-hour CVD among the top 25 cryptocurrencies, while funding rates hovered around -20%. The data points to strong bearish positioning, with negative CVD recorded across all of the top 25 assets.

Bitcoin volatility retreats: BTC’s 30-day implied volatility gauge, BVIV, dropped below 36% after briefly approaching 39% earlier in the week. The decline indicates continued demand for overwriting strategies designed to generate additional returns from existing spot holdings. Ether’s EVIV is showing a similar trend.

Options positioning remains mixed: On Deribit, Bitcoin calls at $70,000, $69,000 and $67,000 were among the five most actively traded contracts. Ether traders showed greater defensive positioning, with puts at $1,700 and $1,780 attracting stronger activity.

Altcoins Deliver Mixed Performance

Ether.fi’s ETHFI token led gains over the past 24 hours, rising 11.5% after the platform added tokenized stocks and DeFi loans to its neobank offering. The token later gave back some of the advance, falling 3.3% on Friday.

Cosmos’ ATOM also rallied more than 10% over 24 hours, while trading volume surged 232% to $51 million despite the absence of a clear news catalyst.

Fetch.ai and Monero extended their weekly gains, advancing 0.55% and 0.81%, respectively, since midnight UTC.

Other major tokens struggled, with NEAR, MORPHO, TAO and JUP each falling roughly 2% as cautious sentiment continued to dominate the crypto market.