Bitcoin ETFs Have Shed More Than $2.4 Billion So Far This Week

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds shed $759 million in assets on Wednesday, the second largest daily outflow in their nearly 14-month history as investors continued to shy away from risk-on assets sending the price of the funds’ underlying asset downward.

The decline follows a day after spot Bitcoin funds set a new high with $1.1 billion in daily outflows, according to U.K. asset manager Farside Investors. The ETFs have hemorrhaged more than $2.4 billion this week, a stark reversal from their dramatic success up to now. 

Crypto markets along with other assets have been rocked by the potential for a trade war resulting from the new Trump administration’s tariffs, spikes in inflation and dwindling consumer confidence in the U.S. economy. Last Friday, the University of Michigan sharply lowered its widely watched consumer sentiment index to its lowest level since November 2023.

Last Friday’s $1.4 billion hack of the Bybit exchange, the largest ever of its type, has further unsettled crypto investors. 

Bitcoin was trading below $84,000, roughly flat over the past 24 hours but down about 17% since late January, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is changing hands at levels it last held in November 2024, and some observers are predicting that BTC might fall to $70,000.

Ethereum, the second-largest digital asset, has fallen even more precipitously during the past month to also change hands at more than three-month lows. 

The approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission  of the first spot bitcoin funds last January signaled a more receptive regulatory environment, igniting wider investor interest in crypto-based products that issuers have been scrambling to address. The 11 ETFs currently trading now manage more than $90 billion in assets.

Spot Ethereum funds that received SEC approval in July manage over $8 billion in assets, although they have had 222.4 million in outflows this week. 

In recent months, asset managers have filed applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for new funds based on the performance of XRP, Litecoin, Cardano, Polkadot, and Solana, to meet investors’ growing appetite for crypto-focused funds. 

In a Telegram message to Decrypt, markets analyst Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter, said that Bitcoin’s decline was “part of the risk-off shift, with growth concerns hitting almost all liquid markets.”

But Acheson struck an upbeat note, adding that “with crypto, there are other narratives in play, and lower levels will entice new investors.”

“The moves coming from the SEC are good news all around, and we could see encouraging signs of more ETF issuance in coming weeks or even days,” she said. “Plus, the large traditional institutions are gearing up to launch new crypto services, which will further encourage macro investors–we should see this start to play out in coming months.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward