Money moved out in a hurry. Bloomberg reported that, over Friday and Monday, money pulled from US-listed Bitcoin funds totaled $1.04 billion on a net basis. Of that, withdrawals from BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust made up $405 million on Monday.
The wave came as Binance explained how attackers pulled off the Oct. 29 heist. The company said the hackers relied on social engineering tactics such as fake job interviews along with malicious software in a "sophisticated, multi-stage campaign." Binance attributed the $6.3 billion theft to North Korea, a claim Pyongyang denied.
After the exploit, Binance temporarily paused withdrawals, then brought them back in phases. According to the exchange, roughly 95% of the impacted assets have been restored, with major tokens fully backed.
On Tuesday, Bitcoin hovered a bit over $77,000, lingering around its 100-day moving average after an intraday drop below it earlier that day. Since last week's selloff, it hasn't managed a durable bounce, putting the spotlight on whether that support survives as Americans go to the polls.
Derivatives point to caution. Over the last 24 hours, Deribit's put-call ratio came in around 1.2, signaling heightened appetite for downside protection. "Over the past seven sessions, Bitcoin futures saw $2.7 billion of net aggressive selling while spot saw net buying," said Alice Liu, who heads research at CoinMarketCap. "The leverage is leaving through the front door; the coins are staying."
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The election injects an additional dose of uncertainty. Donald Trump ran on a pro-crypto platform, pledging to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and last year he saw the GENIUS Act enacted, which established a federal framework for stablecoins. In September, the Clarity Act - the industry's next major priority - did not make it through the Senate.
Russell Thompson, who serves as Hilbert Group's chief investment officer, said, "I do not think a significant Democrat win is priced into the price of Bitcoin." According to Re7 Research, the vote could act as a clean-up catalyst, stripping out a major overhang and letting lean positioning feed through to revived risk-taking.
This stack of pressures - heavy fund outflows, a major exchange breach, cautious options activity, and an election with policy implications - has crypto markets on edge. Analyst Alex Kuptsikevich at FxPro said the market "looks bleak enough to test the most important support levels of recent months," and cautioned that, without a catalyst, a quick turnaround is unlikely.
On the micro side, Bitget Wallet research lead Lacie Zhang said a systemic crisis is not the base case. She flagged withdrawal restrictions, thinner market depth, and stablecoin depegging as risks, while noting that Binance's steps to restart withdrawals and rebuild reserves have eased several near-term worries.
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