Asia Morning Briefing: BTC Tests Its Floor as Legacy Sellers Meet Macro Rotation

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

BTC is trading hands around $106,500 as Hong Kong works through the second business day of November. The world’s largest digital asset is steady after a week-long slide that erased nearly 13% over the past month. Ethereum traded around $3,620, still down almost 20% over the same period.

The debate among trading desks this week centers on what’s driving crypto’s weakness: macro or micro.

Singapore-based market maker Enflux wrote in a note to CoinDesk that the “real story today was rotation,” with liquidity flowing out of crypto and back into equity markets led by AI and fintech.

“Wall Street is gearing up for another leg higher, powered by liquidity and infrastructure bets, while crypto continues to test where its floor truly lies,” the firm said in its note.

QCP Capital took a different view in its daily update, arguing that recent drawdowns have little to do with macro.

Instead, QCP wrote, legacy holders, the “OGs” of Bitcoin, are taking profits after a long rally, sending large BTC transfers to exchanges like Kraken. On-chain data shows roughly 405,000 BTC in long-held supply moved over the past month, yet prices have held above the $100,000 threshold.

“The market has absorbed legacy supply without breaching key support,” QCP said, noting that leverage remains low and funding rates flat.

Despite diverging explanations, both sides agree that crypto’s consolidation phase isn’t over.

The market is caught between profit-taking from early holders and the broader rotation of risk capital into traditional assets. For now, BTC’s ability to stay above $100K suggests structural resilience, even as it struggles to compete with the liquidity narrative powering global equities.

BTC: Bitcoin slipped to around $106,500 during Asia trading, extending its recent downtrend as selling from long-term holders outweighed a mild rebound in broader risk assets.

ETH: Ether hovered near $3,620, underperforming Bitcoin as traders continued rotating out of alt exposure amid fading DeFi activity and weak risk appetite.

Gold: Gold steadied above $4,000 an ounce on Monday, rising 0.6% as traders weighed China’s move to end a long-standing gold tax rebate, a policy that could dampen local demand but lift global prices by tightening supply and raising replacement costs across the market.

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