Coinglass data: On Monday, liquidations across the whole network exceeded $530 million in 24 hours. The vast majority were long positions (TradingView citing Benzinga). That day, Bitcoin tried to push toward $84,000, but it failed to break through and then slid back to around the $82,000 level. Ether also briefly touched $2,717 during the day but didn’t hold. The long positions that chased the breakout were basically wiped out completely.

What’s interesting is the institutional side. Last week, the total net inflow into the four categories of spot ETFs in the U.S. exceeded $3.3 billion—BTC alone grabbed $2.39 billion (BTC again took $2.39 billion), ETH $690 million, SOL $188 million (SOL again $188 million), and XRP $75.6 million (Cointelegraph citing SoSoValue, reported on Sep 29). Then on Monday, the four together were left with only $64.8 million—about an 80% drop from Friday. Institutions bought the dip on Friday, but on Monday they basically gave up.

Even worse is $ZEC. After that privacy coin rally got way too hot, it dropped 9% straight on Tuesday, back to around $1,423. Its ETF had net outflows of $8.1 million on Monday—also the only category to see outflows that day (CoinDesk via TradersUnion). When it was up, it looked so glorious; when it retraces, it looks how ruthless it can be.

So you see, the data is really contradictory: ETFs set a record for buying last week, yet prices are falling; the bulls think 84,000 will definitely be broken, but it liquidated more than 500 million in positions. So what does that mean? It means the disagreement between longs and shorts at this level is so extreme that nobody can convince the other. I, for one, just can’t make sense of it, so I turned off all leverage and hold spot—sleeping peacefully. #ETFvsBTC