Bitcoin's exchange reserves fell $23.5bn and 92% of it was the price

Good morning. Bitcoin is $76,968, down 1.2% on the day and 9.6% over 30 days, and Americans vote today in the midterm elections. BlackRock's bitcoin fund sold $405m on Monday, its largest outflow on record. The supply squeeze everyone is reading about is not happening.

The tape

Bitcoin (BTC) $76,968, -1.2% on the day, -3.5% on the week, -9.6% over 30 days. Ether (ETH) $2,264.65, -0.9% and -16.1% on the month. BNB, the largest exchange's own token, $696.83, -1.2% and -11.8%. Solana (SOL) $92.23, -1.7% and -23.7%. XRP $1.25, +0.5% and -16.1%. Bitcoin holds 59.9% of all crypto value, now $2.58tn.

Gainers: Metaplex (MPLX), behind most asset creation on Solana, +31.0% on $71.9m of volume against a $45.1m market value, 1.59 times its own size in a day; Janction (JCT), which rents graphics processors to AI work, +25.0%; Irys (IRYS), a data-storage chain, +19.2%. Losers: MEET48 (IDOL), a fan-voting platform, -32.0% after a 117.7% week; Zcash (ZEC), the privacy coin, -7.8%.

Where to look

1. 01

   BlackRock's IBIT sold $405.3m on 2 November, its biggest outflow in the 40 sessions on record and more than the day's entire net.

   The other eleven spot bitcoin funds moved $6.7m between them, all into Fidelity's FBTC, so IBIT was 101.7% of the -$398.6m print. It took in $931.8m across October while those eleven sold $1.45bn. The buyer that absorbed October is the seller now.

   

   WatchA third straight outflow session, which would mean the one fund holding the bid has stopped bidding.

2. 02

   OKX retail is 2.78 accounts long per short in bitcoin, a 30-day high and 1.59 times the 30-day median of 1.75.

   The long/short ratio counts the accounts at one venue sitting each way. Dogecoin (DOGE) reads 5.08, XRP 3.67 and solana 3.41. Open interest, the money committed to open futures, is $2.63bn on OKX's bitcoin contract. Retail added leverage into the vote while the funds sold $1.02bn.

   WatchBitcoin below $76,000 with the ratio above 2.5, which turns a drift into forced selling.

3. 03

   The dollar float behind crypto broke $300bn: $295.86bn, down $11.22bn in 30 days and $12.04bn from the 7 October peak.

   Tether (USDT) lost $4.96bn and USDC $3.00bn. Ethereum's share fell $5.91bn, 53% of the whole decline, against Tron's $550m. The largest on-chain dollar deposits pay under the 4.21% three-month Treasury bill, 3.80% at Sky's savings vault and 3.85% in BlackRock's BUIDL, so the money is paid to leave.

   WatchThe float under $290bn, another $6bn of buying power gone.

4. 04

   Friday's bitcoin expiry holds 21,076 coins of calls, $1.62bn, and the market gives a 17.5% chance the price even touches the biggest strike.

   A call is the right to buy at a set price; the two largest sit at $82,000 and $85,000, 6.5% and 10.4% above spot. The November ladder collapsed in two days: $100,000 this month trades at 1.85% from 3.05% on 1 November, $92,500 at 7.5% from 10.5%. On the market's own numbers those calls expire worthless.

   WatchSettlement at 08:00 UTC on 6 November, five and a half hours before the jobs report.

5. 05

   A Linux flaw with nothing to do with any blockchain froze $136.5m of lending collateral.

   Threshold paused minting and redemption of tBTC, its bitcoin bridge token, on 31 October; Aave's guardian multisig froze the tBTC market at 10:01 UTC the same day. 4,320 bitcoin back 4,185 tBTC, 3.2% more than is owed, so the token is covered and the exit is not.

   WatchThreshold reopening redemptions, which does not reopen Aave's market by itself.

The deep dive

The dollar value of bitcoin held on exchanges fell $23.48bn in 30 days, and 91.9% of that was the price falling, not coins leaving. Exchange-held coins went from 2,673,624 to 2,648,960 over the same month: 24,664 coins, 0.92%.

We divided exchange-held dollar value by the same day's price to get coins, then split the change into last month's coins repriced and the coins that left valued at today's price. The split leaves no remainder: bitcoin fell from $84,756 to $76,681, $21.59bn of the $23.48bn. Ether is the same, $7.73bn gone and 87.4% of it price.

The coins that did leave have one night behind them. Of the 24,664 bitcoin, 22,941 left on 29 October, when $6.36bn was taken from Binance: 93% of the month's outflow in one session, most of it the thief moving stolen coins. Ether's largest day was the same one, 304,534 of a 433,147 decline.

The strongest objection is that a share measure would show a drain where dollars do not. It does not. Exchanges held 13.31% of all bitcoin on 3 October and 13.17% on 2 November: 14 basis points. Over 90 days the share went 13.29% to 13.17% while the dollar value of those reserves rose $30.80bn, because the price rose 18.7%. The flows disagree too: 64,394 coins out over 30 days, 2.6 times the fall in holdings.

This is a repricing, not a withdrawal. What would prove it wrong: exchange-held bitcoin under 2.60m coins, a 1.9% fall, while the price holds flat.

The news

• Binance paid out $9.68bn net over Sunday and Monday. It says 95% of the $6.36bn stolen on 29 October is replaced with its own money, and it has spent 7,499 bitcoin, $577m, from its emergency fund, about half the bitcoin that fund held. The loss sits on Binance's books, not its customers'.
• Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil's largest exchange, lost about $40m and says customers will not. The attacker's wallets hold $46m; Tether froze 4.5m USDT and total freezes are near $7m, 15% of what the attacker controls. A breach wallet already moved 2,800 ether on, which is how the other 85% leaves.
• A record $9.2bn of crypto was stolen in 2026, and one night is most of it. The 90-day exploit record carries $7.52bn across 118 events, of which Binance alone is $6.36bn: 85% of three months of losses in one incident. Strip it out and 2026 looks ordinary.
• Tether earned $1.5bn of operating profit in the third quarter and holds a $7.95bn buffer above its reserves. Its fee line is $16.76m a day and $520.4m over 30 days, 22.8% of all crypto fees; with Circle's $207.8m, two dollar issuers take 32.0%. Crypto's most profitable business is a Treasury-bill fund.

Token talk: Monero (XMR)

Monero (XMR) is a blockchain that hides the sender, receiver and amount of every transaction by default. There is no company and no treasury: miners are paid in new XMR, and the protocol issues 0.6 XMR with every two-minute block for ever, about 157,680 a year, 0.84% of the 18,826,073 outstanding.

It is here because the privacy trade split today. Zcash (ZEC) fell 7.8% and is down 13.9% over 30 days; Monero rose 2.6% and is up 12.6%, a 29-point gap between two assets sold as one idea.

The difference is leverage. Zcash carries $485m of open interest on Hyperliquid, the largest on-chain futures venue, against a $19.51bn market value: 2.49%. Monero carries $151m against $11.72bn, 1.29%. Zcash holds 1.9 times the futures position per dollar of asset, and today it fell while Monero rose.

XMR is $622.22, +79.1% over a year and 22.0% below its 14 January 2026 high of $797.73, turning over 1.24% of its value a day. What would change the view: Monero's open interest rising toward Zcash's ratio, putting the same crowding under it.

Token Tape is written by an automated research desk built and supervised by Eric Manoukian. Figures are pulled live each morning and errors are possible. Nothing here is investment advice. The editor may hold positions in assets discussed.