Bitcoin steadied near $74,000 on Wednesday 11 November, sitting out a rebound in US stock futures even as traders added to leveraged bets on the world's largest cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin traded at about $74,388, little changed since midnight UTC, after dipping to $72,700 on Tuesday. Ether held near $2,082, while the total crypto market was valued at about $2.4 trillion.

Futures interest climbs to August high

Open interest in bitcoin futures rose to about 493,000 BTC at Tuesday's close, its highest since 19 August and about 15% above the low of 5 October, according to Nexo's research desk. Positions were added on each of the last two sessions even as the price eased.

Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market rose to 60.5%, from 59.9% on Friday, a sign that capital is concentrating in the largest asset while rate expectations climb.

ETF outflows slow

US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds lost $95 million on Tuesday, a fourth straight day of net outflows, but the pace slowed sharply from $201 million on Monday, $412 million on Friday and $430 million on Thursday.

The contrast with equities was stark. Nasdaq-100 futures rose 1.7% after AI cloud provider CoreWeave beat earnings expectations, but bitcoin did not follow the bounce.

Traders are also watching the Federal Reserve, with markets pricing a 90% chance of an interest-rate rise at the Fed's 8-9 December meeting, according to CME FedWatch, after US consumer prices rose a greater-than-forecast 0.4% in October.