Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Hits Low Before BTC Price Bounce: Is Recovery in Sight?

The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index — a measure of the divergence of Bitcoin’s price on Coinbase versus its average price on a number of other exchanges — fell to -0.1623% on November 21, its lowest level since Q1 of 2025. 

This negative number means Bitcoin is actually less expensive on Coinbase than it is on many other exchanges. That signals reduced buying activity in the US, increased selling pressure, and a weakening of institutional demand.

The index had been firmly in positive territory until just after the enormous liquidation event that hit crypto markets on October 10. On October 11, the index hit a high of 0.1787%, but since then it’s been steadily falling and has been in negative territory since October 31.

The fall in the index coincides with Bitcoin’s own precipitous price drop since early October. On October 6, Bitcoin sat at its all-time high price of US$126,199 ($AU195k) — just days later, on October 10, the largest liquidation event in crypto history struck. Ever since, it’s been red candles all the way down. 

Bitcoin made a new low of US$82,500 (AU$127k) on November 22. However, in the past few days, it’s seen a bounce and at the time of writing sits at around US$87,500 (AU$135k) according to CoinGecko.

Related: Bitcoin’s ‘Max Pain’ Zone Set Between $73K and $84K, Says Bitwise Analyst

ETFs See Inflows as Bitcoin Bounces

Coinciding with Bitcoin’s recent bounce, spot Bitcoin ETFs have also started to see significant inflows — November 21 saw net inflows of US$238.4 million (AU$368.9m), the best single day since November 11. 

In addition to the strong inflows, total volume for the Bitcoin spot ETFs on November 21 was also healthy at US$11.5 billion (AU$17.7b) according to Bloomberg’s Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. US$8 billion (AU$12.3b) of volume was accounted for by BlackRock’s IBIT fund.

Based on the high trading volume, some now believe November 21 may have marked a capitulation event for Bitcoin and we may now start to see some solid support at around the US$80k level (AU$123.8k).

Related: BlackRock Expands Bitcoin Bet with Australia’s First iShares Bitcoin ETF

Supporting this capitulation theory is Glassnode data from Friday showing over US$4 billion (AU$6.1b) in realised Bitcoin losses — the highest level since the May 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. It may just be that everyone who is going to sell has now sold and we might see some stability return to the crypto market.