U.S. spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds lost about $910 million over two weeks, with hotter inflation data and a brief price dip below $80,000 weighing on demand.
Key Points:
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $228.6 million in net outflows this week after a $681.1 million exit the week before.
- A 3.7% annual inflation reading coincided with the worst session of the week and a slide below $80,000.
- The funds are down roughly $615 million for October but still hold about $57 billion in net inflows since launch.
Bitcoin ETF Outflows
The funds lost a net $228.6 million in the five trading days ending Oct. 16, according to SoSoValue data, after a $681.1 million drain the week before. On Friday, the week's second-worst session, BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust accounted for $71.8 million of an $82.4 million exit, while Fidelity's fund gave up the remaining $10.6 million.
Redemptions beat inflows on three of the five days. Monday's $65.4 million outflow gave way to a $175.6 million inflow on Tuesday, but the rebound did not last. Wednesday brought about $261 million in redemptions, the same day data showed September consumer prices up 3.7% from a year earlier, above the 3.6% forecast, and Thursday added back only $5.1 million.
Bitcoin briefly fell below $80,000 on Thursday, touching a low near $79,800, as nearly $950 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, about 90% of them bullish bets, according to CoinGlass. Spot Ethereum (ETH) funds fared even worse, shedding roughly $320 million over the same week, mostly from BlackRock's Ethereum trust, as their losing streak stretched into a third week.
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BTC Cost Basis
The slide pushed Bitcoin below the average ETF holder's estimated cost basis near $82,300, Nexo analyst Iliya Kalchev said. Analytics firm Glassnode places that level closer to $81,500. Bitcoin traded around $81,200 on Sunday, below both of those estimates.
On average, fund buyers are now sitting on paper losses.
The U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark range to 3.75%-4% in September, and a hot inflation print raises the odds of another hike. Higher rates push Treasury yields toward a nearly risk-free 5%, a tough rival for Bitcoin, while lifting the dollar and making credit costlier for leveraged traders. Still, weekly trading in the funds topped $7.5 billion, a sign investors stayed active even as they cut exposure, and total net assets sit near $104.3 billion.
ETF Flow Swings
The funds opened October with roughly $293 million in inflows but are now down about $615 million for the month, a sharp reversal from the $3.5 billion they drew in August and $2.6 billion in September.
Even so, the slide, which picked up with a $484.9 million exit on Oct. 7, the worst day since June, remains small next to roughly $57 billion in net inflows since the January 2024 launch.
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