Wall Street rallied 2% and bitcoin barely followed: what the US session of 11 November says about crypto

The Nasdaq Composite was up 2.21% and the S&P 500 up 1.50% at about 17:35 UTC on Wednesday 11 November, according to Yahoo Finance quotes, as chip and AI stocks bounced after two bad days. Bitcoin followed at a distance. On Coinbase it opened the US cash session at $73,451 (14:30 UTC) and stood at $74,353 at 17:35 UTC, a gain of 1.2%, without once leaving a $73,294 to $74,710 range. The last one-minute close before publication was $74,445 at 17:42 UTC.

That is the bitcoin price today in one line: up, but far less than the stock market it has been tracking all autumn. It is also the second time in three sessions. On Monday we described the first day Wall Street jumped 2% and bitcoin did not. Tuesday’s hot inflation print and the Fed debate it opened are in this morning’s piece on CPI and the December hike odds; this analysis starts where that one ended.

The US session is not over. Stock exchanges close at 21:00 UTC, every equity figure below is a mid-session reading, and the spot ETF flows for 11 November will only be published after the close. What the first three hours already show is a market where the money behind bitcoin is still leaving, through the ETFs and the stablecoins, while traders on the derivatives side carry close to record leverage and pay up for protection on the downside.

Bitcoin price today: three hours inside a $1,400 range

The table gathers the session so far. Prices for the open and the range come from Coinbase Exchange 1-minute and 5-minute candles; the last column comes from our own market snapshot, taken at 17:45 UTC, which compares each coin with its level 24 hours and seven days earlier.

The low of the session, $73,294, came five minutes after the opening bell, at 14:35 UTC. The high, $74,710, came at 17:22 UTC. So the direction was up, slowly, for three hours. Before the US open, between midnight and 14:30 UTC, bitcoin had already moved between $73,110 and $74,087, which means the American session added only about $600 to the top of the overnight range.

Compare that with Tuesday. In the same window on 10 November, bitcoin went from $73,675 at the open to $73,823 at 21:00 UTC on Coinbase, but in between the selling after the 13:30 UTC CPI release and the weak stock session pushed it down to about $72,700 in the afternoon (exchanges report lows between $72,643 and $72,787). Wednesday’s session has so far not come close to that level.

Ether did better than bitcoin, as it often does on a risk-on afternoon: +2.0% since the open and +3.62% over 24 hours at 17:45 UTC, against -14.37% over seven days. Solana and XRP sat in between. The total crypto market value was about $2.50 trillion at 17:45 UTC with bitcoin’s share at 59.8%, and the Fear & Greed index stood at 29, in the fear zone. For readers in the euro area, Coinbase’s BTC-EUR book showed about 67,200 euros at 17:42 UTC, with the euro down 0.65% against the dollar on the day.

Wall Street’s rebound came from chips, not from rates

The stock market had a company reason to rise, not a macro one. At about 17:35 UTC (12:36 in New York) the S&P 500 stood at 7,633.61 (+1.50%), the Nasdaq Composite at 25,620.98 (+2.21%), the Dow at 52,354.74 (+0.24%) and the Russell 2000 was up 0.88%, according to Yahoo Finance. On Tuesday the S&P 500 had closed 0.38% lower at 7,520.93 and the Nasdaq 0.74% lower.

The engine was AI hardware. CoreWeave was up about 25% at 17:35 UTC, on Yahoo Finance data, after reporting third-quarter revenue up 168% and raising its full-year forecast to between $13.0 billion and $13.3 billion, according to Nexo’s market note. Nvidia was up about 4.6% at the same time after two steep falls, and still about 14% below its 30 October close. A rebound led by a handful of chip names lifts the Nasdaq far more than the Dow, which is exactly the gap between +2.21% and +0.24%.

Nothing in the macro picture improved. The dollar index (DXY) was at 102.91 at 12:26 New York time, up 0.67% on the day, after a 0.6% rise on Tuesday, per Yahoo and Nexo. Gold was down 0.46% at $4,011.70 and WTI crude up 1.0% at $86.92. The US bond market is closed for Veterans Day, so there is no fresh Treasury price: the 10-year yield shows 5.00%, which is Tuesday’s close. On Tuesday, short-dated yields rose the most in 19 months, according to Nexo.

For bitcoin, that mix matters. A firmer dollar and 5% long rates are the same headwinds that pushed it down on Tuesday, and they did not ease on Wednesday. Stocks had earnings to point to, while bitcoin had no news of its own to offset them.

Fed rate hike odds: the 50 basis point tail is still in the price

October’s core consumer prices rose 0.3%, the threshold Fed Governor Christopher Waller had set the day before. In his speech of 10 November, published on the Federal Reserve’s site, Waller said: “I would still support a 25 basis point increase in the FOMC’s policy rate at our December meeting.” He added that if core CPI came in around 0.3% or higher, a 50 basis point hike “should be considered at the December meeting.” Governor Michelle Bowman said the same day that “monetary policy is not on a preset course”.

No Fed official was confirmed to speak on 11 November. The federal funds target range is 3.75% to 4%, and the next decision is due on 9 December, at the end of the 8-9 December meeting.

According to CoinDesk citing CME FedWatch, the probability of a December hike rose to 90% (reading at 6:37 New York time). Nexo’s morning note, written during the Asian session, gave a quarter-point hike as the base case per FedWatch, with a half-point move “priced at almost 15%”. A Korean broadcaster’s reading, SBS, gave 100% for a hike of some size, split 88.5% for 25 points and 11.5% for 50. The snapshots differ in time and definition. Together they say: markets see a hike as close to certain, and keep between 11% and 15% on the larger one.

Martin Lee, market insights lead at DWF Labs, wrote in a note quoted by Bitcoin.com News that arguments about currency debasement are not enough on their own: “The limitation is that debasement alone rarely sustains a rally when the broader market is risk-off.” With rate hikes on the table, the case for bitcoin as a hedge against loose money has less to hold on to.

Bitcoin ETF flows: a fourth day of outflows, and smaller ones

The US spot bitcoin ETFs lost $95.0 million on Tuesday 10 November, according to Farside Investors’ table, read at 17:40 UTC. SoSoValue’s total, relayed by CoinDesk and Bitcoin.com, is the same. It was the fourth straight day of net outflows. Only three of the twelve funds moved.

BlackRock’s IBIT, the largest fund, has now lost money on eight straight sessions: 30 October and every trading day from 2 to 10 November. Over 2 to 10 November alone its outflows add up to $1,500.9 million. What has changed is the size. The daily total went from -$430.2 million on Thursday 5 November to -$411.9 million on Friday, -$201.0 million on Monday and -$95.0 million on Tuesday. The selling is shrinking, but it has not stopped.

Over those eight sessions the funds gave back $2.22 billion. Farside’s cumulative net inflow since launch stands at $55,470 million, and Bitcoin.com reported on 11 November that this year’s net flows are now more than $1 billion negative. Ether ETFs were almost flat on Tuesday at -$1.3 million (21Shares’ TETH -0.4 million, Grayscale’s mini ETH trust -2.0 million, ETHB +1.1 million), after -$184.6 million on Monday.

Do the outflows explain the price, or the other way round? DWF Labs’ Lee thinks the second: “They haven’t been good indicators of what we can expect price to do next.” Flows into these funds tend to follow price moves, so Wednesday’s figure, due after the close, will say more about how US investors read the rebound than about where bitcoin goes next. Readers new to these products can start with our guide to how spot bitcoin ETFs work.

Stablecoin supply shrank by another $1.1 billion

The second source of buying power is still draining. Total dollar stablecoin supply was $289.85 billion at 17:34 UTC, according to DefiLlama, down $1.12 billion in 24 hours and $4.54 billion in seven days. On DefiLlama’s daily series it stood at $289.5 billion at midnight UTC, $14.5 billion less than 30 days earlier. Tether’s USDT accounts for most of it, at $175.67 billion (-$596 million in a day, -$2.49 billion in a week), with Circle’s USDC at $69.95 billion (-$426 million and -$980 million). On Tuesday morning the weekly drop was $3.85 billion; it has grown since.

CryptoQuant put the link to price plainly in a post relayed by CoinDesk’s Daybook: “Stablecoin growth funded every rally this cycle.” The firm counts a $6.6 billion fall in USDT’s market value over 60 days, the biggest 60-day drop since its data began in 2022, and a negative Coinbase premium for 30 days, a sign that US buyers on Coinbase pay less than traders elsewhere. The longer story of this drain, which started well before November, is in our analysis of the stablecoin supply drop.

Derivatives: high leverage, cheap options and a lean to puts

If spot buyers are cautious, leveraged traders are not. On Binance’s BTCUSDT perpetual, funding was +0.0048% per eight hours at about 17:35 UTC, positive all day but below the 0.01% base rate, so longs pay shorts a little, without excess. Open interest on that one contract was 98,981 BTC, about $7.4 billion, slightly below the 100,470 BTC seen at 05:45 UTC. Leverage was trimmed, not flushed.

Across all venues, K33 counts 353,000 BTC of perpetual open interest, in the 99th percentile of the past two years and up 12% in 30 days while the price fell 10%, FXStreet reported early on 11 November. Vetle Lunde, K33’s head of research, said the build-up “likely reflects a combination of hedging activity and speculative positioning.” K33 also measured bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with the Nasdaq at 0.75 last Thursday, in the 99th percentile since 2020. Wednesday’s session is a test of that link, and so far bitcoin is following the Nasdaq’s direction at about half its pace.

Liquidation figures need care because each outlet uses its own window. CoinGlass data relayed by CoinDesk at 6:37 New York time showed $725 million liquidated in 24 hours, with ether ($253 million) ahead of bitcoin ($200.5 million, 85% of it long positions). Later, Bitcoin.com cited CoinGlass for a window it did not specify: $199 million across the market, more than $131 million of it short positions, including more than $43 million of bitcoin shorts. The first number is Tuesday’s sell-off; the second is the rebound catching traders who bet on more downside.

Options tell the cautious side of the story. On Deribit, put volume ran at 1.5 times call volume and eight of the ten busiest contracts were puts struck between $69,000 and $74,000, led by the 27 November $69,000 put, according to CoinDesk. Puts at 25 delta cost 4 to 5 volatility points more than equivalent calls. Our own sum of Deribit open interest at 17:47 UTC gives 198,716 BTC in calls against 149,058 in puts across all expiries, a put/call ratio of 0.75: the stock of bets still leans to calls, while the fresh money goes into protection.

Friday’s weekly expiry, at 08:00 UTC on 13 November, comes five and a half hours before the US producer price index. It holds 21,216 BTC of calls and 11,508 of puts, with the largest open interest at the $81,000 call (8,306 BTC) and the $84,000 call (5,201), on our 17:47 UTC read of Deribit’s data. The “max pain” strike, where option buyers as a group would lose the most, is $76,500. That is a statistic about who holds what, not a price target. For ether, the same expiry is dominated by puts (91,688 ETH against 54,892 in calls), and the $2,000 strike carries 49,400 ETH of open interest, the biggest ether level of the week.

Implied volatility is low for a market this crowded. Deribit’s DVOL index for bitcoin was about 39 at 17:00 UTC, barely changed from 39.9 at midnight UTC on Tuesday; ether’s was 55.6. A K33 analyst quoted by FXStreet summed up the risk of that combination: “A breakdown could trigger substantial long liquidations, while a recovery could fuel short covering.”

Crypto stocks rode the Nasdaq, except Strategy

Crypto equities behaved like high-beta tech stocks. At about 17:35 UTC, according to Yahoo Finance, Coinbase (COIN) was up 4.67% at $138.30, miners MARA (+7.08%, $7.86) and CleanSpark (+7.69%, $7.07) outran the Nasdaq, and Bitmine (BMNR), the ether treasury company whose annual report showed a $6.3 billion loss this week, rose 6.89% to $19.33. BlackRock’s IBIT, which simply tracks bitcoin, was up 1.02% at $42.10.

Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate bitcoin holder, rose only 1.85% to $123.32. It is the one name in the group with a specific decision hanging over it tonight. MSCI is due to publish its November index review after the US close tonight, the first list under its new screen for companies that mainly hold digital assets. No outcome was known when this analysis was published.

What is at stake is set out in the rules MSCI finalised on 15 October, as The Block reported: an operating-assets screen plus five financial ratios. A company already in an index is removed only if it fails the screen in each of its two most recent annual filing periods; a newcomer is refused if it fails in either. The methodology takes effect with the November review, according to The Block. Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake were named as at risk in a May simulation. Whether any company actually fails is unknown until MSCI publishes.

The calendar: claims on Thursday, then expiry, PPI and difficulty on Friday

Thursday 12 November brings US weekly jobless claims, and Nexo’s schedule also lists a 30-year Treasury auction and earnings from Cisco and Applied Materials. The auction will be the first fresh read on long rates since the Veterans Day pause.

Friday 13 November is the busier day. Deribit’s weekly options expire at 08:00 UTC. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the October producer price index at 13:30 UTC; after a 0.3% core CPI, a hot PPI would feed the 50 basis point scenario, a soft one would cool it. The same day, bitcoin’s blockchain and earns a reward, which makes rewriting history very expensive.">mining difficulty is expected to fall by about 4.8%, as detailed in our preview of the 13 November difficulty adjustment.

Further out: the minutes of the Fed’s October meeting are reported for 18 November, the same day as a TRUMP token unlock, with a LayerZero (ZRO) unlock on 20 November. Deribit’s monthly expiry on 27 November has a max pain of $79,000 and its largest strikes at $90,000 (5,041 BTC) and $58,000 (3,932 BTC), at 17:47 UTC. The FOMC decides on 9 December.

What would change the picture for bitcoin

On the downside, the first line is Tuesday’s low, about $72,700. FXStreet’s technical read places the next support in the $70,000 zone, with the daily RSI near 33, and Matt Mena, senior crypto research strategist at 21Shares, told The Block on 10 November that a sustained break below $73,000 “could send BTC toward $69,000.” That is also where the busiest Deribit puts sit. With open interest in K33’s 99th percentile, a break there would likely be fast, because forced selling of long positions would add to it. Bigger ETF outflows than Tuesday’s $95 million, or a faster stablecoin drain, would point the same way.

On the upside, bitcoin is trading about $1,200 above the 200-day average that CryptoQuant puts near $73,200, a line the firm says separates a shallow correction from a deeper one, according to CoinDesk’s Daybook, which had bitcoin hovering around it this morning. The next mark is the 365-day average, about $76,400 by CryptoQuant’s count, which the Daybook says must be reclaimed to restore a bullish structure, and Friday’s max pain at $76,500. FXStreet’s exponential averages sit a little higher: 200-day at $76,409, 100-day at $77,481 and 50-day at $78,895, with horizontal resistance at $85,000. The figures differ because they measure different things (a simple average against an exponential one, over different periods), so neither is the single 200-day line.

K33’s history gives the base rate. After strong Nasdaq rebounds, bitcoin rose in eight of nine cases, by a median 2.9%; after rebounds that failed, it fell in all seven, by a median 21%. K33’s Lunde put it in one sentence: the near-term outlook for bitcoin “appears heavily dependent on whether Nasdaq’s rebound can be sustained.” That makes the stock close at 21:00 UTC, and Thursday’s session, more important for bitcoin than any crypto-specific news this week.

This reading would be wrong in one of two ways. If bitcoin closes the day above about $75,000 while the Nasdaq holds its gains, the gap is closing and the lag was only timing. If the Nasdaq gives back its rally and bitcoin still holds above $73,300, then bitcoin was the steadier of the two. Wednesday’s ETF figure is published after the US close, and the producer prices arrive on Friday at 13:30 UTC.