Wintermute says AI drains liquidity; U.S. selling drives Bitcoin price discovery

Wintermute said on February 10 that Bitcoin fell to $60,000 last week, erasing all gains since Trump\u0027s election, as spot funding flows signaled structural pressure and the Coinbase premium remained at a discount throughout the move, persisting since last December. Its internal OTC funding flow data indicated U.S. counterparties were the main sellers throughout the week, a trend Wintermute said was amplified by ongoing ETF fund redemptions. The firm added that AI-related assets have been absorbing market capital and crowding out crypto allocations, linking crypto underperformance on AI rallies and deeper pullbacks to rotation into the AI sector; it said crypto outperformance likely requires AI trading to cool, only tentatively started by Microsoft\u0027s weaker-than-expected earnings. Wintermute described a surrender-style liquidation with volatility spiking and buy support at $60,000, said leverage dominates amid low spot volumes and follow-through will be hard without a clear rebound in open interest, and argued that sustained upside is unlikely before the Coinbase premium turns positive, ETF capital flows reverse and the basis interest rate stabilizes, while retail attention is being diverted and ETFs and derivative channels increasingly steer direction.