Bitcoin Slips Under $75K as $917M Liquidates, Connors Eyes End of 142-Day Slump

Bitcoin News

Bitcoin may be turning a corner against traditional assets as the digital currency exits its longest stretch of underperformance versus the S&P 500 on record. Mark Connors, chief investment officer at Risk Dimensions and the former global head of portfolio management at Credit Suisse, argues that a 142-day relative weakness phase ended in early May, opening a new window of outperformance against stocks, bonds, and gold. With inflation proving sticky and the bond market under pressure from a higher-for-longer rate regime, Connors describes BTC as moving from consolidation into a fresh advance, calling the underperformance chapter definitively closed.

Even amid that constructive long-term thesis, the spot market delivered a sharp jolt overnight. Bitcoin briefly traded as low as $74,344 during early Saturday hours, marking the first dip below $75,000 in more than a month before recovering toward $75,500. The 1.8% daily slide dragged the broader complex lower, with Ethereum down 2.7% near $2,059 and Solana off more than 3% at $84. Derivatives positioning paid the price: roughly $917 million in futures liquidations cleared in 24 hours, led by $371 million in BTC and $261 million in ETH, with leveraged longs absorbing $827 million of the damage.

Spot product flows mirrored the weakness. The U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF complex bled more than $1.25 billion over the past week, extending a six-day outflow streak that ranks among the worst on record for the funds. The exodus accelerated after BTC lost the $80,000 handle and momentum shifted decisively bearish. With creations stalled and authorized participants rotating capital away, the structural bid that underpinned price action through the post-approval era softened materially, removing a major source of passive accumulation just as spot liquidity thinned over the weekend window.

Industry commentary increasingly frames the move through a macro transmission lens rather than a crypto-native trigger. Yellow Capital chief executive Diego Martin observed that geopolitical shocks no longer impact digital assets directly; instead, they push U.S. Treasury yields higher, which compresses risk appetite, drains ETF flows, and ultimately weighs on bitcoin. The cycle is now mediated through institutional plumbing rather than retail sentiment. Persistent oil prices, elevated yields, and a stubborn inflation backdrop have stitched BTC tighter to traditional risk barometers, even as long-horizon allocators continue to view the asset as an inflation hedge alongside its blockchain settlement utility.

Within the precious metals comparison, Connors sees a familiar pattern resetting. He likens the present setup to 2020, when gold rallied first as the pandemic erupted before bitcoin staged a dramatic resurgence and ultimately outpaced bullion through the subsequent bull market. Gold has already had its run during the recent risk-off phase, he argues, and capital seeking the next leg of inflation protection is rotating toward BTC. The bridge between artificial intelligence and decentralized rails — particularly machine-to-machine settlement infrastructure — adds another structural tailwind that gold cannot match in his framework.

On a more reflective note, the community is revisiting the long lineage of attempts to make bitcoin physically tangible, beginning with Mike Caldwell's Casascius coins minted in September 2011 when BTC traded near $8. Caldwell generated private keys on an airgapped machine, glued them inside precious metal coins, and sealed them with tamper-evident honeycomb stickers, pioneering many of the cold wallet design principles still studied today. Subsequent generations of physical bitcoin — cards, USB devices, and bearer instruments — have iterated on the key-management problem without fully solving it, leaving a trail of collectible artifacts that document the asset's cultural journey.

Spot BTC trades near $75,821, down 0.62% on the day, with the relative strength index at 41.35 reflecting a softening downtrend that stops short of oversold conditions. The MACD signal remains bearish, while immediate support sits at $75,342, followed by deeper bids near $73,981 and $72,659. Resistance starts at $76,727 and stiffens at $78,584 and $80,635. A reclaim of $76,727 on rising volume would neutralize near-term selling pressure, while a clean break of $73,981 risks accelerating toward $72,659. The constructive thesis invalidates if MACD fails to cross higher within the coming week.