US traditional financial markets and digital asset markets are showing a striking divergence, as New York stocks staged a strong rebound led by tech shares while Bitcoin (BTC) could only barely climb back to around $75,000 with a very limited gain.
This decoupling highlights the fragility of the current market structure, with persistent capital outflows from spot ETFs acting as the core drag on any price recovery, preventing digital assets from replicating the momentum seen in US equities.
Looking at specific market data, as of 8:27 a.m. on the 10th, Bitcoin on South Korean digital asset exchange Upbit was trading at 102.24 million Korean won, down 0.21% from the 9 a.m. price the previous day.
On global exchange Binance, Bitcoin was down 0.39% from 24 hours earlier at $75,277. Other major tokens also showed weakness, with Ethereum (ETH) falling 1.25% to $2,134 and Ripple (XRP) dropping 2.82% to $1.10.
By contrast, US stocks performed strongly, with the Nasdaq Composite rising 2.7% the previous day, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.4% and 2.2% respectively.
Although Nvidia (NVDA.US) shares fell 4.3%, buying support in other tech stocks drove the broader indices higher. International gold prices also rose 1.8% to $4,148 per ounce, while international oil prices dropped about 5% to around $87 per barrel, mainly helped by US President Donald Trump indicating a low likelihood of a large-scale military strike on Iran, easing Middle East tensions.
However, the digital asset market did not benefit from this round of renewed risk appetite. During the US stock rally, Bitcoin actually fell 1.1% to around $74,800. Ethereum and Ripple each dropped nearly 5%, and Solana (SOL) also fell nearly 3%.
On-chain data from Woofun AI shows that in the past 24 hours, approximately $71.81 million worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated, of which about 55.4%, or $44.34 million, were long positions. Across the entire market, roughly $320.69 million worth of positions were liquidated.
This leveraged liquidation further intensified price volatility, making it difficult for Bitcoin to hold its footing after a brief rebound. In the first half of this year, whenever US stocks fell, Bitcoin also weakened, while it underperformed during rallies.
Recently, weighed down by the tech stock selloff, Bitcoin's response to the stock market rebound has been very limited, indicating that the recovery in demand for risk assets has not yet spread to the digital asset market. The deeper reason lies in the retreat of institutional capital.
Last week, US spot Bitcoin ETFs (IBIT.US) recorded a total net outflow of $1.282 billion. Spot ETFs are an important gauge of institutional investor demand for Bitcoin, and over the past two years, more than $20 billion in capital flowed into the market annually, supporting Bitcoin's price gains, but this year even the cumulative fund flow has turned to net outflows.
Analysts believe that because there is insufficient new buying when stocks rebound, Bitcoin prices cannot gain upward momentum. Market attention is now focused on the US October CPI (Consumer Price Index) data due later today, with the market expecting inflation growth to slow from the previous month.
If inflation rises less than expected, US Treasury yields could decline, which would have a positive impact on risk assets such as Bitcoin. Analysts at financial services firm Marex (MRX.US) pointed out: "The US 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4.85% is indeed positive for the market, but it is not enough to offset the pressure from continued capital outflows and newly added leveraged positions."
This assessment indicates that unless there is a substantial return of capital or favorable macroeconomic policy, Bitcoin will struggle to escape its weak pattern in the short term, with its price trend continuing to be squeezed by both ETF fund flows and leveraged liquidations, and its correlation with traditional risk assets potentially weakening further.
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