Bitcoin Sits Out the Stock Rally, Pinned Near $74,000 as CPI Looms and ETF Money Keeps Leaving

Bitcoin spent Tuesday pinned just above $74,000 while Wall Street enjoyed its best day since April. The largest cryptocurrency traded near $74,300 on Tuesday morning, with an overnight low of $74,100, according to CoinDesk. Ether fell 1.4% over the same stretch to about $2,092, and the wider market barely moved. The contrast with equities was the story: on Monday the S&P 500 posted its best session since April 8 and the Nasdaq rose 2.7%, while Bitcoin ended the US session little changed.

The selling is concentrated in one place: the spot exchange-traded funds. US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $201 million on Monday, led by $213.2 million of outflows from BlackRock’s IBIT, its seventh straight session of redemptions, according to Farside Investors. The week from November 2 to 6 saw about $1.28 billion leave the funds, their worst week since late June, and that has turned 2026 flows negative at a net $914.1 million out, according to The Block. Ether funds are bleeding too, losing $184.6 million on Monday. Sentiment reflects the mood: the Crypto Fear & Greed Index reads 32, in “Fear” territory, up from 29 on Monday and 25 on Saturday, but far from the 61 “Greed” reading of a month ago.

Traders are waiting on one number: October’s US consumer price index, due later today at 8:30 a.m. Eastern (6:30 p.m. PKT). Economists expect headline inflation up 0.3% on the month and core prices up 0.2%, cooling from September’s 0.6% and 0.3%. The report is the last inflation reading before the Federal Reserve’s December 8–9 meeting, where markets price roughly an 80% chance of a quarter-point rate rise. Technically the picture is heavy: Bitcoin sits below its 200-day average near $76,457, its 100-day near $77,575 and its 50-day near $79,141, with the RSI around 36, and options traders are paying a premium for downside protection.

Yet while prices stall, the plumbing of the market keeps getting built. Avalanche (AVAX) rose 5% over 24 hours after the New York Stock Exchange picked the blockchain for clearing and settlement on its planned 24/7 tokenized securities platform (Ava Labs, November 9). AVAX futures open interest jumped 13% against the 5% price gain. XDC Network, a chain focused on tokenizing real-world assets, led the CoinDesk 100 with a 7% rise, while last week’s privacy-coin winners gave it back, Monero falling 7.8% and Zcash 6.3%, as traders rotated into real-world-asset tokens. Coinbase added its own milestone: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved its national trust company charter on November 6, converting a conditional approval from April, and Coinbase announced it on November 9. It is the third crypto trust charter this year, after Circle in July and Ripple in October, though it is not a commercial bank licence, and community bankers have sued the regulator over the approvals.

What to watch next: today’s CPI print, which carries no year-over-year comparison this time, so the monthly figures matter more than usual; producer prices on Friday, November 13; and whether ETF flows can produce a single inflow day after a week of heavy redemptions, the first sign sellers may be tiring. The 200-day average near $73,150 is the floor to hold; reclaiming $76,000 to $77,500 would signal renewed strength. The split between a market building real infrastructure and a price that will not rally is the tension to watch into December. For readers trying to size positions in conditions like these, our forex tools include calculators built for fast-moving markets, and our free forex course explains how rate expectations move prices. (Not financial advice.)