Bitcoin traded around $75,400 on Wednesday, slipping further from last week's high above $82,000 as renewed US military strikes on Iran, persistent exchange-traded fund redemptions and a looming options expiry combined to keep buyers on the sidelines.
The largest cryptocurrency was rejected at $78,000 on Tuesday before drifting lower overnight, leaving it below the $76,000 level that widely followed Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee has identified as the threshold that must hold at month-end to confirm a new bull market.
Lee told the Consensus 2026 conference in Miami earlier this month that bitcoin has never been in a bear market after posting three consecutive monthly gains, and that a May close above $76,000 would mark the definitive end of the downturn that dragged prices from $126,000 in October to $60,000 in February.
With four trading days left in May, the margin for error is thin.
Institutional flows have turned sharply negative. US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $334 million in outflows on Monday alone, extending a streak that has seen roughly $1.55 billion leave the products since mid-May.
Year-to-date net inflows into the category have shrunk to just $536 million, a fraction of the $2.44 billion that poured in during April.
CoinShares data showed digital asset investment products more broadly suffered $1.47 billion in redemptions last week, the third-largest weekly outflow of 2026, with rising Treasury yields making safer income-generating assets more attractive relative to crypto.
The 10-year US Treasury yield eased to around 4.47% on Wednesday after falling eight basis points the day before, as bond markets weighed the prospect of a US-Iran peace deal against fresh American strikes on Iranian targets.
Prediction market Polymarket priced a 62% chance of a permanent deal by the end of May and 91% by year-end, but the mixed signals from Washington, where President Trump described his decision as a "solid 50/50" between diplomacy and further strikes, left traders reluctant to take large positions.
Adding to the technical pressure, options contracts worth $6.25 billion are due to settle on Deribit on Thursday, with the $75,000 strike holding the largest concentration of put open interest.
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The max pain level, the price at which the greatest number of contracts expire worthless, sits at $75,000, creating a gravitational pull that risks reinforcing the very support level the market is already testing.
Bitcoin has fallen roughly 30% from its October record and is down around 11% since the start of 2026.
