Bitcoin steadied near $76,000 on Friday after a heavy sell-off the day before wiped out more than $1.26 billion in leveraged cryptocurrency positions and drove US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds to $430 million in outflows.

Bitcoin rose 0.64% to $75,849 in a late Friday snapshot, with Ethereum up 0.92% to $2,235 and Cardano leading the major coins, up 3.32%. The calm close followed a Thursday rout in which the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5% on fears that Democratic control of Congress would slow the buildout of artificial intelligence data centres.

More than $1 billion in positions wiped out

The slide spread from shares into crypto, where more than $1.26 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data reported by CoinDesk. About $1.12 billion of those were long positions, or bets on higher prices. Over the same period Bitcoin fell 5.3% and Ether 7.3%, while the wider CoinDesk 20 index lost 6.28%.

Bitcoin had dipped to around $75,200 late on Thursday before recovering the $76,000 level during Friday's session. Analysts linked the selling to doubts about the returns on heavy infrastructure spending.

ETF investors head for the exit

US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $430.2 million in net outflows on Thursday, according to SoSoValue data reported by CoinDesk. Fidelity's FBTC lost about $199.9 million and BlackRock's IBIT about $105 million. The flows reversed Wednesday's $74.6 million inflow and brought net redemptions for the week to $869.8 million.

Traders now look to Tuesday's October consumer price index, the last inflation reading before the Federal Reserve meets on 8 and 9 December. With market pricing putting a December rate rise at about 78% after Friday's strong jobs report, crypto remains exposed to the same rates pressure that drove this week's swings.