Bitcoin Price Slips Below $74K as Options Traders Eye $72K and Liquidations Mount

Bitcoin Derivatives Face Heavy Liquidations as Long Traders Take the Hit

Bitcoin’s price entered Tuesday morning nursing a 1.3% daily decline and a 3.5% weekly loss, with the leading cryptocurrency changing hands at $73,703 at approximately 8:45 a.m. Eastern time. Beneath the price action, derivatives markets reveal a complicated mixture of leveraged positioning, defensive options activity and fading speculative enthusiasm.

According to Coinglass liquidation logs, 80,898 traders were liquidated over the preceding 24 hours, generating $356.16 million in forced closures. Long positions absorbed $280.40 million, compared with $75.77 million in short liquidations.

Ethereum (ETH) accounted for $117.61 million in liquidations, followed by bitcoin (BTC) at $86.14 million and solana (SOL) at $23.45 million. BTC longs represented 82.3% of BTC liquidations, while ETH longs accounted for 88.4% of ETH’s total.

The largest individual liquidation occurred on the decentralized perps DEX Hyperliquid, where a $14.31 million BTC-USD long position was wiped out. Binance accounted for 42.6% of aggregate liquidations across the exchanges tracked.

The turbulence follows a brief post-election recovery that failed to establish lasting momentum. Bitfinex analysts told Bitcoin.com News Tuesday morning that the advance depended more on derivatives positioning than meaningful spot accumulation.

The analysts said:

“A market held up by perpetual longs rather than spot bids tends to break levels in cascades rather than grind through them, and that is how the cost basis was lost on Sunday.”

Bitcoin Options Reveal Heavy December Exposure and Defensive Trading

The options market presents another intriguing picture. Coinglass bitcoin options data on Tuesday shows 240,193.43 BTC in outstanding call contracts against 186,945.7 BTC in puts, giving calls a 56.23% share of total options open interest.

However, the latest 24-hour trading volume favors puts, which account for 22,336.57 BTC, compared with 20,920.15 BTC in calls. The distinction suggests that although outstanding positioning leans toward upside exposure, recent trading activity has tilted modestly toward downside instruments.

Deribit’s largest listed position is the Nov. 13 $81,000 call, carrying 8,306.8 BTC in open interest. December’s $80,000 call follows with 8,028.8 BTC, while the Dec. 25 $100,000 call represents another 6,612.9 BTC.

On the downside, December’s $60,000 put holds 6,521.2 BTC, while the $40,000 put accounts for 5,504.5 BTC. These distant strikes illustrate the breadth of outstanding positioning rather than providing reliable forecasts of where bitcoin will trade.

Trading volume tells a different story. The Nov. 13 $74,000 put leads Deribit’s rankings with 3,563.4 BTC in volume, followed by the Nov. 27 $72,000 put at 2,060.8 BTC. Both strikes sit considerably closer to bitcoin’s prevailing market price. Meanwhile, max pain logs show Deribit’s Nov. 13 level near $75,000, with the Nov. 27 expiry around $79,000 and the substantial Dec. 25 expiry near $76,000.

In simplistic terms, max pain represents the theoretical settlement price at which outstanding options holders collectively suffer the greatest losses. It is not a guaranteed destination for the underlying asset.

The December expiration stands out for its enormous notional value on Deribit, approaching $11 billion. Cryptoquant’s CME options data likewise show outstanding exposure extending across multiple expiration windows, although the exchange’s aggregate positioning has declined considerably from its early-2026 peaks.

Futures Open Interest Remains Elevated Despite Cooling Funding Rates

Bitcoin futures markets continue to carry substantial leverage. Tuesday’s figures place Binance’s open interest at $10.84 billion, followed by CME at $7.33 billion, Bybit at $6.10 billion, MEXC at $5.15 billion and Gate at $4.54 billion.

Binance’s open interest increased 2.20% over 24 hours, while CME gained 1.61%. Conversely, BingX recorded a steep 25.27% contraction, illustrating the uneven distribution of derivatives activity across trading platforms.

Cryptoquant’s funding rate data provides another revealing detail. After spending much of February through May in negative territory, aggregate bitcoin funding rates turned predominantly positive during the second half of 2026. However, Bitfinex analysts observed that funding had cooled considerably following the post-election rally, and stated:

“Cheap leverage tells us longs are no longer crowded, not that anyone is buying.”

The crypto market analysts also warned that short liquidations and the unwinding of election-related hedges helped drive the temporary recovery, rather than aggressive buying in spot markets.

Hotter October CPI Adds Pressure as Bitcoin Approaches $72K

Macroeconomic conditions have introduced another complication. Tuesday’s October Consumer Price Index (CPI) report showed headline inflation rising 0.4% month over month, exceeding the anticipated 0.3%. Core inflation increased 0.3%, also above expectations.

The figures could reinforce concerns about restrictive Federal Reserve policy, potentially complicating bitcoin’s recovery as derivatives traders reassess their exposure. Bitfinex analysts expect bitcoin to remain within the $72,350 to $79,400 range implied by options expiring Nov. 13, with trading concentrated toward its lower half.

They also identified $75,900 to $77,500 as a potential selling zone, while a sustained recovery would require renewed spot demand and a reclaim of the short-term holder cost basis.

The central question is whether reduced speculative leverage and continued bullish optimism can establish a foundation for price recovery or merely precede another bout of selling. Options traders are maintaining substantial exposure, futures positions remain elevated, and the latest liquidation figures demonstrate how quickly leveraged optimism can unravel.

For bitcoin, cheaper leverage alone offers little comfort when genuine buyers remain conspicuously absent.