Wintermute flags U.S. selling and AI rotation sapping crypto liquidity as Bitcoin enters volatile price discovery

Wintermute said on February 10 that Bitcoin briefly fell to $60,000 last week, erasing all gains since Donald Trump's election, while spot flows and a persistent negative Coinbase premium since December point to ongoing structural selling pressure from U.S. counterparts, further amplified by continued ETF redemptions. The firm noted that in recent months AI-related assets have consistently attracted available market capital at the expense of crypto, with digital assets underperforming when AI names rally and falling more sharply when they decline, a pattern it largely attributes to capital rotating into the AI sector and believes would require AI trading to cool before crypto can outperform again. According to Wintermute, last week's move resembled a capitulation flush as volatility spiked and bids emerged around $60,000, but in an environment of weak spot volumes leverage is driving price swings and a lack of recovery in open interest is preventing sustained follow-through in either direction, while true structural repair would need a visible return of spot demand, which it currently does not see. The firm added that the market is likely entering a choppy, high-volatility price discovery phase and that, until the Coinbase premium turns positive, ETF flows reverse and basis rates stabilize, the upside appears limited, with retail attention scattered into other asset classes and overall direction increasingly driven by institutional flows through ETFs and derivatives.