Bitcoin Slips Toward $74K as Texas Seats Reserve Committee, CFTC Greenlights Kalshi BTC Perps, ETFs Bleed $2.84B

Bitcoin News

Texas has formally seated its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee, with Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock naming four external members on Thursday to guide one of the first state-level BTC treasuries in the United States. The five-person body, established under Senate Bill 21, will advise on valuation, custody, and risk management as the comptroller's office moves to transition the reserve's $10 million seed position out of BlackRock's IBIT and into directly held coins. Appointees include CleanSpark CFO Gary Vecchiarelli, Cormint Data Systems CEO Jamie McAvity, SMU law professor Carla Reyes, and investment executive Laurie Dotter, whose backgrounds span mining operations, institutional trading desks, and digital-asset commercial law.

In Washington, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission cleared Kalshi to list perpetual futures tied to Bitcoin's spot price, marking a structural opening for an instrument that has driven roughly $90 trillion in offshore volume in the past year. The order, issued Friday, makes Kalshi the second U.S.-regulated venue authorized for crypto perps after Bitnomial received similar clearance in December. A company spokesperson said the launch is targeted within the next month. CEO Tark Mansour described the approval as the platform's most significant expansion since event contracts, framing the shift as Kalshi's pivot into a full-stack regulated derivatives exchange in direct competition with Polymarket and Hyperliquid.

The derivatives green light arrives against a starkly different backdrop in the cash market, where U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs have now logged their longest losing run on record. The products absorbed another $223 million in net redemptions on Thursday, extending the streak to nine consecutive sessions and pushing cumulative withdrawals to roughly $2.84 billion. That run eclipses the prior eight-day stretch set in February 2025, though the dollar magnitude still trails the $3.2 billion that exited during that earlier risk-off episode. The data points to a sustained cooling in institutional demand for vehicle-based BTC exposure as macro uncertainty pressures balance sheets.

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust shouldered the bulk of the bleed, surrendering approximately $2.04 billion between May 15 and Thursday. A single-day $527.8 million redemption on May 27 ranks as IBIT's second-largest outflow ever, narrowly missing the $528.3 million record set on January 30, 2025. Despite the pressure, IBIT still anchors the category, holding roughly 792,000 BTC, or about 62% of all assets parked in domestic spot funds. The concentration underscores how a single sponsor's flow profile can effectively dictate the headline number for the entire segment on any given session.

Capital rotation rather than wholesale flight appears to be part of the story, with newly listed Hyperliquid ETFs gathering more than $100 million in net inflows since launching on May 12. Spot XRP funds have also strung together steady positive sessions, suggesting allocators are testing fresh altcoin wrappers while trimming concentrated BTC exposure. Corporate treasury vehicles such as Strategy face renewed scrutiny in tandem, as equity-linked premiums to NAV compress and shareholders weigh dilution math against a softer spot tape. The dispersion across products signals selectivity rather than capitulation, with new product launches still finding willing capital.

Regulatory plumbing kept moving in parallel, with the Securities and Exchange Commission granting Paxos registration as a clearing agency through its Paxos Securities Settlement Company subsidiary. The approval positions Paxos as the only blockchain-native firm cleared to operate as a central securities depository in the United States, a designation that places tokenized-asset settlement rails inside the same regulatory perimeter as traditional clearinghouses. Separately, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce used a Georgetown Law appearance to defend privacy-preserving cryptographic tooling, arguing that financial privacy is being systematically undervalued by current rule-writing and that such technologies can reinforce, rather than erode, investor protection.

BTC trades near $74,019 after a 1.51% bounce over 24 hours, but the broader tape remains in a downtrend with the candlestick structure pinned below the $75,046 resistance shelf. RSI at 37.75 sits inside oversold territory without yet confirming a reversal, while MACD continues to print a bearish cross, leaving rallies vulnerable to fade. Bulls need a clean reclaim of $75,046 and then $76,616 to reopen a path toward $78,592; failure to hold $72,953 likely accelerates flow toward $71,504 and the $70,280 structural floor. A daily close back above $76,615 would invalidate the immediate bearish thesis.