Morning Minute: Bitcoin Falls Again as JPMorgan Blames Crypto Natives for Selloff

And sell off they have, as Bitcoin hit a new four-month low overnight—turning crypto markets deep red.

By Tyler Warner

5 min read

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

  • Crypto majors very red as Bitcoin hits 4-month low at $105,700
  • ETFs see biggest outflows since August with $530.9M
  • Charles Schwab plans to launch crypto custody in H1 2026
  • MegaETH partners with Chainlink for real-time data stream oracles
  • Meteora introduced its tokenomics and airdrop checker, trades at $1.08B premarket

📉 Crypto Selloff - “The Natives Did It”

It’s been a long-standing joke: “Are the sellers in the room with us?”

Well, it turns out: Yes, indeed they are.

📌 What Happened?

According to JPMorgan, the sharp crypto correction last week in crypto and carrying through this week was largely self-inflicted.

In a note to clients, the bank said the sell pressure came from crypto-native investors, not institutions.

The data backs that up: While open interest on Binance and other offshore venues cratered, CME’s institutional contracts barely moved.

It’s very much a tale of two markets.

Regarding on-chain crypto, the more than $19 billion in liquidations that slammed the crypto market on Friday have tremendously impacted sentiment and prices, neither of which have yet to recover.

Glassnode shows nearly $12 billion in futures open interest evaporated overnight, the biggest single-day decline in dollar terms ever.

Yet, institutional flow looks calm.

The ETFs have seen steady inflows through the turbulence. Across the past two weeks:

  • BTC ETF inflows: $2.4B
  • ETH ETF inflows: $460M

CME’s Bitcoin open interest held steady, ETF outflows were minor, and Coinbase volumes even ticked up, suggesting that institutional money (smart money) mostly watched from the sidelines.

This was the crypto casino cleaning itself out, not TradFi calling it quits.

🧠 Why It Matters

The institutions have mostly still been buying through the pain —so who has been selling?

Answer: ancient whales and 4-year cycle believers.

There’s plenty of data showing the amount of Bitcoin sold this year from those ancient whales, many of whom were up billions. They said they were going to dump their coins on Wall St., and then they did.

And then one of the biggest anecdotal takeaways from the Asia crypto conference tour last month was that many Asian whales still believe in the 4-year cycle, and fully planned on selling this year aligned with prior cycles.

While this has put us in a painful spot, there are reasons to be optimistic.

  • The ancient whales will run out of Bitcoin at some point.
  • The four-year seasonality won’t last much longer.
  • And the institutions don’t care about any of this, just showing up to buy week after week.

Couple those reasons along with the recent on-chain leverage flushout and you have a nice foundation to set up a healthier base for the next leg upwards—not to mention the prospective gold-to-Bitcoin rally that typically takes place when gold leads (and boy, is it leading right now).

So stay the course, bulls—this too shall pass. And we have a good shot at seeing new ATHs still here in 2025…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

  • Memecoin leaders are very red; DOGE -8%, Shiba -7%, PEPE -9%, PENGU -10%, BONK -10%, TRUMP -5%, SPX -14%, and FARTCOIN -11%

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

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