Retail investor 'retreat' to $98.5K: 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

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Bitcoin (BTC) starts November with a dip to $107,000 as traders brace for further support retests.

Bitcoin price action gives bulls a grim sense of deja vu as weekend gains evaporate and downside liquidity grows.
November seasonality calls for serious BTC price gains, but so far, there is no sign of relief.
US-China trade deal hopes are sustaining stocks, while crypto fails to join the party as Fed rate-cut nerves return.
Institutional demand reaches seven-month lows compared to the newly mined BTC supply.
Bitcoin retail investors are in retreat, as data suggests that $110,000 prices may be unsustainable due to low network activity.

Bitcoin trader sees “difficult” trading week

Bitcoin fell as soon as the daily close was completed, returning to $107,000.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD erasing the entire weekend’s gains after traders warned over its “Sunday pump.”

“In all honesty, it looks like this could be one of the most difficult trading weeks of Q4,” trader CrypNuevo forecast in a thread on X.

“That makes me think we might be in a range-bound environment; therefore, I should be aware of a potential range lows retest.”

CrypNuevo noted that those lows had key confluence with the 50-week exponential moving average (EMA) at $101,150, increasing their odds as a bottom target. Price revisited the area on Binance during its snap crash from all-time highs of $126,200 in October.

“It’s a very solid support, so we would see a very aggressive bounce from there,” he continued.

Others, including trader Daan Crypto Trades, prioritized exchange order-book liquidity for key nearby price targets.

“Two big liquidity levels had built up in the short term during the weekend range,” he told X followers.

“Price took out the lower bound that was sitting at $108.5K. There's still a decent cluster around $112K. When zooming out, the $105K-$106K and $117K levels are worth looking at.”

Trader and analyst Mark Cullen warned that liquidity lower down could prove too tempting.

“$BTC looks weak and that lower liquidity slice is calling, but do we get one last push up before we see a deeper pull back in the coming days / weeks?” he queried on X.

“We wait for the US to wake up and see how they kick off the week.”

BTC price recovery odds collapse

It may be the start of what is traditionally the best six months of the year for stocks, but crypto is in no mood to follow suit.

Bitcoin is already down 2% in November, adding insult to injury for bulls still reeling from its worst October performance since 2018.

Data from CoinGlass shows how high the stakes are — average November gains since 2013 have been more than 40%.

Prediction markets underscore the current low sentiment among crypto market participants. Polymarket has just a 33% chance of BTC/USD finishing the month above $120,000, with $115,000 at 60%.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, meanwhile, remains in “fear” territory, yet to reflect Bitcoin’s latest dip to $107,000.

Last week, when that level also reemerged, research platform Santiment suggested that it was key when it comes to investors’ price outlook.

“Bitcoin's dip to $107K Thursday has led to a high amount of sub-$100K $BTC price predictions,” it wrote on X at the time, alongside a chart comparing price calls below $100,000 to those over $150,000.

“Markets move opposite to the crowd's expectations, therefore a relief rally is probable while FUD is peaking like it is now.”

Trade-war relief versus a hawkish Fed

Good news takes precedence for stocks this week as optimism over a US-China trade deal trumps a brewing risk of interest conflict.

S&P 500 futures opened modestly higher as markets digested reduced tariffs and the removal of restrictions on Chinese rare earths and automotive chips.

“This is the BIGGEST de-escalation yet,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter wrote in a reaction to the plans over the weekend.

Despite concerns over US military intervention in both Venezuela and Nigeria, trade remained at the top of the list for risk-asset investors. At the same time, only crypto felt the strain as the new week began.

A breakdown in Bitcoin’s correlation to stocks did not help the situation. Last week, macro analyst Jordi Visser said that now, only major tech stocks provide BTC price action with some form of anchor.

“Bitcoin moves with tech stocks. It is correlated to liquidity and ‘risk appetite,’” he wrote in a blog post.

“For years, you could predict Bitcoin’s direction by watching the Nasdaq. That correlation has broken down recently and since December of 2024. Completely.”

20% of S&P 500 company earnings are due in the coming days, including AMD and Palantir.

The ongoing US government shutdown means that precious little inflation data will be made available, with only private-sector payrolls unaffected.

In the background, there is growing uncertainty about US economic policy. The Federal Reserve is increasingly hawkish, with additional interest-rate cuts in 2025 now far from guaranteed.

Data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool puts the odds of a cut at the Fed’s next meeting in December at 63%.

Commenting, trading outfit Mosaic Asset Company said that the Fed’s planned halt of quantitative tightening (QT) could provide a bullish counterweight.

“That’s shrunk the Fed’s balance sheet from a peak of nearly $9 trillion in 2022 to $6.5 trillion now,” it wrote in the latest edition of its regular newsletter, “The Market Mosaic.”

“Ending QT removes a key source of financial market liquidity drain.”

Institutional supply drain reverses

Bitcoin institutional demand is back in the spotlight this week as BTC price underperformance versus stocks and gold takes its toll.

Data from UK-based investment firm Farside Investors shows three consecutive days of net outflows from the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through Oct. 31.

The largest of these, the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), contributed over half a billion dollars of the total.

Now, these flows are causing concern as institutional demand fails to keep pace with the daily increase in the BTC supply.

The trend was noticed by Charles Edwards, founder of crypto quantitative digital asset fund Capriole Investments.

“For the first time in 7 months, net institutional buying has DROPPED below daily mined supply,” he commented alongside Capriole figures Monday.

Edwards described the findings as “not good,” stressing that the total included the ETFs.

The last time institutional appetite failed to match newly mined supply was just before BTC/USD hit its current local lows around $75,000 in early April.

As Cointelegraph reported, however, Visser sees ETF progress as part of a long-term maturation of Bitcoin as a macro asset class.

“For years, the liquidity simply didn’t exist. Try selling $100 million of Bitcoin in 2015. You’d crater the price. Try selling $1 billion in 2019. Same problem. The market couldn’t absorb it,” he argued.

“But now? ETFs are providing institutional bid. Major companies hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Sovereign wealth funds are getting involved. The market has finally matured to the point where early holders can exit significant positions without causing chaos.”

Bitcoin retail investors in “retreat”

Bitcoin retail investors have run for cover ever since the price dipped nearly 20% from all-time highs in October.

This is visible from the decline in active BTC addresses, as reported by research from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant.

“At the beginning of November 2024, active addresses were around 1.18 million, while as of October 30, 2025, they stand at 872,000, representing a 26.1% decrease,” contributor Carmelo Aleman wrote in one of its “Quicktake” blog posts over the weekend.

Aleman directly linked recent price action, which sparked multiple mass liquidation events, to retail’s “retreat.”

“The absence of retail investors limits visible network activity and delays the natural end of a market cycle,” he concluded.

“Retail provides the emotional push and liquidity for strong hands to exit positions profitably, and without it, cycles extend longer than usual.”

Fellow contributor Pelin Ay went further, suggesting that the Bitcoin network had diverged too far from price. Metcalfe’s Law, she said — which measures fair price relative to network propagation — supports that theory.

“When the NVM Ratio sharply rises above 1, and especially above 2, the price has historically tended to pull back afterward,” a Quicktake post explained.

“The current value of 2.97 suggests that the network valuation is well above the historical average, indicating that Bitcoin is currently trading in an overvalued zone relative to its network size.”

Ay suggested that the BTC price could drop to as low as $98,500 next, as a result of Metcalfe-based “saturation.”

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

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