After Bitcoin (BTC) made an attempt to retest the $68,000 support level on April 1, it faced further weakness as the largest cryptocurrency broke below the $68,000 level, falling 5.38% to trade at $66,700 at the time of writing. BTC has declined by 6.3% since the start of Q2.

Institutional outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs continue after the long Easter weekend, likely inducing further downside to the price of Bitcoin.

On April 1, outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) reached $302.6 million, while inflows from BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC were $165.9 million and $44 million respectively. This resulted in a net outflow of $85.7 million.

QCP Capital, a Singapore-based trading firm and market maker, warned of increased downward pressure across cryptocurrency spot markets in its latest “Asia Morning Color” update on its Telegram channel.

They reported that the crypto options market provided early insight to the current sell-off, where significant interest in selling calls and buying puts in both BTC and ETH put downward pressure on spot prices.

They also pointed out that the sharp sell-off in BTC and other crypto assets were due to large liquidation on exchanges like Binance. Perpetual contracts funding rates reset from as high as 77% to flat.

Examining the exchange order book liquidity on Binance, trading resource Material Indicators indicated a challenging picture for BTC’s price action leading up to the upcoming Bitcoin halving. The firm highlighted increasing bid liquidity toward $60,000, suggesting that “smart money” had placed bids down to $62,000.