Bitcoin price hovered below $78,000 on May 16 as crypto markets faced renewed selling pressure from investors worldwide. Higher Treasury yields and lower demand for ETFs, as well as inflation fears, brought traders toward safe financial assets. The overall crypto market fell significantly over the past 24 hours, too.
Crypto Market Drops as Bitcoin Slips Below $78K
The crypto market overall lost about 3% and the total market cap came down to approximately $2.59 trillion. Bitcoin has fallen by nearly 3% in 24 hours to trade near $77,937. Ether also descended and came within touching distance of the $2200 support level.
XRP price hovered in the $1.40 range while Solana, Cardano, Dogecoin, and HYPE continued to experience declines.
Bitcoin ETF Withdrawals Shake Investor Confidence
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced significant weekly outflows in institutional products, sparking even more negative sentiment in the market.
Major weekly outflows in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs across institutional investment products worsened market sentiment. The latest data revealed almost $1 billion flowed out of Bitcoin ETFs in the past week.
According to SoSoValue data, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a total net outflow of $290 million on May 15 (ET), with none of the 12 ETFs seeing net inflows. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs posted a total net outflow of $65.65 million, marking the fifth consecutive day of outflows. pic.twitter.com/zo1BxaTbvQ
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 16, 2026
The IBIT fund, managed by BlackRock, had net outflows greater than $317 million for the same period. This new outflow period follows a run of 6 weeks of inflows that brought nearly $3.4 billion into Bitcoin investment products. None of the 12 spot BTC ETFs saw any positive inflows on May 15, according to the SOSOValue data.
Ethereum ETFs were also hit by the pressure as they had $65.65 million flowing out of them in the previous trading session. The fall in ETF demand was attributed to increasing risk aversion among institutional investors because of the uncertain macroeconomic environment and the volatility in the markets.
Rising Treasury Yields Pressure Crypto Markets
The 10-year Treasury index rose to over 4.55%, putting pressure on Bitcoin and other speculative assets. Expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts also lowered markedly this week, which also drew the ire of investors. Market forecasts have now been reduced to 27% likelihood for a rate cut in 2026.
Analysts even believe another Federal Reserve interest rate hike remains possible before the end of this year.
The overall market sell-off saw a wide-ranging liquidation frenzy among leveraged crypto trading positions in the past 24 hours. During the big pullback, over $200 million worth of long positions in bitcoin were liquidated.
In the meantime, the Senate’s Banking Committee voted unanimously to pass the CLARITY Act, which gave a boost to the optimism surrounding cryptocurrency regulation going forward.
Bitcoin Faces Heavy Weekend Selling Pressure
Bitcoin experienced fresh selling pressure following reports of Binance aggressively liquidating huge quantities of BTC during low liquidity weekend trading hours.
🚨 BREAKING
BINANCE JUST STARTED AGGRESSIVELY DUMPING BITCOIN DURING LOW-LIQUIDITY HOURS ON THE WEEKEND!
THEY’RE NONSTOP SELLING MILLIONS OF $BTC EVERY FEW MINUTES RIGHT NOW.
THEY DEFINITELY KNOW SOME REALLY BAD NEWS IS COMING ON MONDAY… pic.twitter.com/ktbYaeE5To
— 0xNobler (@CryptoNobler) May 16, 2026
The activity made crypto markets more volatile, with traders speculating that such a rapid sell-off may be a sign of caution for anticipated market-moving events this upcoming week.
