According to Woofun AI, during the Asian trading session on October 13, the price of Bitcoin briefly dropped below $81,000 and then quickly recovered the $83,000 mark within a few hours.
At the same time, South Korea's KOSPI index closed down 5.46%, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix falling about 7% and 9% to 10% during the session, respectively.
The market quickly defined this divergence between crypto assets and traditional tech stocks as a "decoupling" phenomenon.
However, if the observation window is extended to a week, the price surface and underlying capital flows show a completely different divergence, and this short-term price resilience masks the deep-seated contradiction of continuous institutional capital withdrawal.
From the micro-structure of capital flows, net outflows from spot ETFs are the core gauge for judging true market supply and demand.
From October 5 to 9, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs (IBIT.US) recorded a combined net outflow of about $681 million, the largest weekly outflow since June.
Among them, Fidelity's FBTC (FBTC.US) product led the decline, with a single-week outflow of as much as $380 million.
Although Bitcoin's price showed resilience in the $83,000 to $84,000 range during the same period, share redemptions forced the fund to sell underlying assets to meet liquidity needs, revealing the mismatch between price and capital flows.
Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that perpetual contract liquidation data further confirms the deleveraging characteristics: within 24 hours around the early morning of October 13, about $800 million in positions across the market were forcibly liquidated, of which longs accounted for as much as 86%, while total open interest contracted simultaneously.
This rebound driven by short covering, rather than new spot buying, explains why Bitcoin was able to briefly recover when South Korean stocks plunged due to a correction in chip valuations.
The liquidation structure shows that the support near $81,000 mainly came from passive liquidation of leveraged accounts.
After last week's huge outflow, ETFs saw another outflow of about $65.4 million on October 12, and only on October 13 did mixed daily data of about $110 million appear.
This series of data indicates that the institutional pipeline is still bleeding continuously, and single-day price fluctuations cannot reverse the basic fact of weak capital flows.
Marginal changes in institutional behavior also release cautious signals.
Strategy (MSTR.US) disclosed on October 12 that during October 5 to 11 it purchased only 250 bitcoins at an average price of $86,194, with total spending of about $21.5 million.
This scale of buying hit a weekly low for the year, in sharp contrast to the $192.4 million it used during the same period to repurchase preferred stock STRC (STRC.US), which was nearly nine times the amount spent on buying coins.
This operation looks more like maintaining the market narrative of "always buying" rather than confirming a substantive cyclical turning point.
On October 13, Saylor reiterated in an interview with Bloomberg at DC Fintech Week that the Bitcoin bear market had ended slightly below $60,000, that it is expected to return above $100,000, and gave an annualized growth forecast of 20% to 30% over the next few years.
However, as the head of the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, his optimistic remarks are facing a severe challenge from index rules.
MSCI (MSCI.US) launched a consultation in August on "non-operating companies," with feedback due by September 30, and the results are expected to be announced no later than October 16.
According to simulated criteria, companies mainly holding financial assets such as Strategy (MSTR.US) and Metaplanet may be removed from global investable indexes.
This rule change is directly tied to passive capital flows, and once excluded, tracking funds will be forced to sell according to contract.
JPMorgan (JPM.US) estimated in 2025 that Strategy (MSTR.US) therefore faces about $2.8 billion in potential passive selling pressure.
Saylor regards the $80,000 range as the starting point of a new bull market, while MSCI's questionnaire defines it as the critical point of an index identity crisis.
The key to future trends lies in the game between macroeconomic data and the timetable for passive selling pressure.
Bitcoin is currently still trapped in a box range of $81,000 to $84,000, far below its historical high.
The September CPI data to be released on October 14 will become the first hurdle testing the upper edge of the box.
Analysts expect the year-on-year increase to be between 3.6% and 3.7%, higher than 3.4% in August.
If the core reading is cooler, short covering may push prices up to $86,000 to $87,000; if the data is hotter, the support levels of $81,000 or even $80,000 will come under pressure again.
It is worth noting that even if the MSCI (MSCI.US) result is announced on October 16, the actual passive selling pressure will not truly be executed until the November index adjustment.
Therefore, the market needs to closely watch whether MSTR's (MSTR.US) premium relative to Bitcoin narrows, and whether subsequent daily ETF flows can turn positive consecutively.
These two signals will determine whether this rebound is merely a mechanical repair within the box range or whether capital flows have re-established a bullish advantage.
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