Bitcoin Tumbles Below $104K: What's Really Happening Behind the Scenes?

Question

Bitcoin just got smacked—and hard. After sitting pretty near $125K just weeks ago, BTC is now hovering around $103,849, down nearly 4% in the last 24 hours and a brutal 17.5% off its early October peak. The crypto market? Bleeding out with $1.3 billion in liquidations in a single day. Here’s what went wrong.

The Fed Just Ghosted Us (And It Hurts)

Remember when everyone thought interest rate cuts would be the crypto savior? Yeah, that didn’t age well. The Fed did cut rates by 25 basis points, but Jerome Powell basically said “that’s it for 2025”—way less dovish than traders were betting. Cue the risk-off selloff.

The damage was immediate:

$800 million yanked from Bitcoin ETFs in a single week (biggest drain since March)
Institutional buyers pulling back hard—Bitcoin’s daily mine supply is now outpacing institutional demand for the first time in 7 months
Fear & Greed Index crashed to 27 (the scariest it’s been since March)

The Charts Are Screaming “Danger”

Technically, Bitcoin is getting absolutely wrecked:

The RSI is at 35—basically saying “oversold territory incoming.” The momentum indicator (–7,831) confirms buyers have completely lost the plot. MACD? Deep in negative territory at –1,677.

But here’s the kicker: BTC is now trading below EVERY major moving average—both the 10, 50, and 200-day EMAs and SMAs. That’s textbook correction mode.

Derivatives Market Is Eating Itself

Leveraged traders just got liquidated to oblivion. $1+ billion in long positions got nuked in 24 hours. Open interest tanked 8.4%, which tells you everyone and their mom is scrambling to de-risk.

Deriv trading volume exploded to $1.95 trillion (up 142% in a day)—people panic-selling like it’s 2018 all over again. Altcoins got hit even worse: Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and BNB all down 5-9%.

The Alt-Coin Graveyard

Bitcoin dominance just spiked to 60.1%, meaning money is flowing OUT of altcoins and INTO BTC or stables. Classic flight-to-safety move. Altcoins won’t catch a bid until BTC dominance cools back below 60.5% and liquidity improves.

So… When’s the Bounce?

Short-term relief rallies could happen—RSI at 35 usually finds a bounce eventually. But real recovery needs:

A push back above $108,800 to prove bulls aren’t completely dead
Holding $103,500 so we know the floor is real
Institutional ETF flows turning positive (unlikely until macro sentiment shifts)

Bottom line? This is a macro problem dressed up in technical charts. Until the Fed signals another pivot or inflation data surprises to the downside, expect Bitcoin to stay choppy and altcoins to stay in the doghouse.