Bitcoin Slips Under $77,000 Then Bounces Back, But the $75,000 Level Stays in Focus

Quick overview

Thursday was an uncomfortable session for bitcoin. It broke below $77,000 at one point, pulled back to around $77,700, and left traders piecing together what actually happened. The liquidations were real, but the story underneath them was a bit more nuanced than the price action alone suggested.

Tim Sun of HashKey Research pointed out that open interest barely moved during the sell-off, and funding rates stayed quiet throughout. For him, that was the tell. When a price drop cleans out leveraged longs without open interest collapsing, it usually means the market is shaking out excess risk rather than pricing in something worse.

Bitcoin ETFs, however, continued to bleed. The latest session saw outflows of $100.9 million, extending a stretch that included redemptions of $648.6 million, $331.1 million, and $290.4 million on the three preceding days. That is a meaningful run of institutional selling, and it has kept a ceiling on any recovery attempt.

Most of the conversation right now is centered on the $75,000 to $77,000 band. Thursday’s liquidations landed fairly evenly on both sides of the market, longs and shorts taking hits in roughly equal measure, which tends to happen when a market is clearing out crowded positions rather than breaking in one direction. A sustained move under $75,000 would reframe things quickly.

On a longer view, one data point stood out. Bitcoin’s long-term holder supply is closing in on a record high after a multi-year downtrend. That kind of accumulation by patient money does not always move prices in the short run, but it tells you something about where conviction sits beneath the noise.

With a $6.25 billion options expiry landing on May 29 and traders stacking up interest around the $82,000 call strike, the next week is going to matter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR See More

Sophia Cruz

Financial Writer - Asian & European Desks

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.

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