Europe’s ‘Paper Hands’ Trigger Bitcoin’s Worst November Since 2018

Key Takeaways

• A new timezone-based analysis of Bitcoin trading blames Europe for the deepest part of November’s downturn.
• BTC and ETH saw the bulk of their losses during European market hours, while U.S. and Asia sessions remained mostly flat.
• November delivered Bitcoin’s worst monthly return in seven years, with a drop below $85,000.

Bitcoin’s November decline was severe enough to force traders to confront an uncomfortable question: who exactly was doing all the selling?

A new research report suggests the answer may lie in Europe.

According to data from Presto Research, the month’s near-relentless sell pressure—one of Bitcoin’s worst monthly performances in seven years—was overwhelmingly concentrated during European trading hours.

The finding adds a new layer to the post-mortem of a month that saw both Bitcoin and Ethereum fall roughly 20–25% and briefly touch new yearly lows.

Europe’s Bitcoin “Paper Hands” Moment

Presto’s timezone analysis segments BTC and ETH returns into Asian, European, and U.S. market windows.

The pattern it found was unusually stark: Europe consistently posted negative returns for Bitcoin throughout November, while Asia and the U.S. hovered around flat.

Presto’s report notes that the month began under already fragile conditions.

A prolonged U.S. government shutdown restricted access to key economic data for weeks, leaving traders to operate with partial visibility.

Macro sentiment swung day to day, and crypto traded heavily on emotion rather than direction.

As global markets struggled for clarity, ETH slid from nearly $4,000 to around $2,600, while BTC tumbled from above $105,000 into the low $80,000s.

But the steepest legs of the decline, where momentum broke, and forced sellers accelerated, lined up with European trading hours.

Timezone-based analyses have grown more popular in recent years, but rarely do they show such a clean divergence.

Europe, in this case, appears to have carried the sell-side narrative for Bitcoin.

Is This a Bear Market or a Pause Before the Break?

With Bitcoin and Ethereum still unable to reclaim key psychological levels—$100,000 for BTC and $3,500 for ETH—some traders have begun to ask whether the market has already entered a stealth bear phase.

There is precedent for caution.

Oct. 10, now remembered as one of the most violent liquidation days in crypto history, saw over $17 billion wiped out in liquidations and a 30% single-day plunge in Bitcoin.

Many top altcoins lost more than half their value in hours—a classic hallmark of early bear-market behavior.

Still, the broader market picture is more complicated.

Since the November lows, BTC has bounced back above $90,000, and ETH has reclaimed $3,100.

Even after Washington reopened and passed key funding and regulatory agreements, neither U.S. policy clarity nor two Federal Reserve rate cuts managed to spark the kind of aggressive rebound many were hoping for.

This disconnect has left the market split into two camps:

• Bearish analysts, who see deteriorating momentum and failed breakouts as signs that the top is already in.
• Optimists, who argue that one final leg higher is still possible before a true bear market takes hold.

What’s clear is that November did lasting psychological damage.

Whether Europe’s sell pressure was a one-off driven by macro uncertainty, or the start of a structural shift in market flows, remains an open question.

For now, Bitcoin’s recovery attempts are functioning less as rallies and more as tests—measuring not just price strength, but investor conviction.