Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have flipped green after a sideways September.
The top crypto’s Wall Street vehicles drew in $3.2 billion in inflows over the past week as experts expect another $20 billion in demand this year.
That’s according to Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets strategy at British bank Standard Chartered, who also forecasts that heavy institutional buying will push Bitcoin’s price to hit $200,000 by year end.
The surge comes as Bitcoin hit a fresh all-time high on Sunday, breaking through the $125,000 barrier. Of the new $58 billion in total Bitcoin ETF inflows since launch, $23 billion have been in 2025, Kendrick added.
The consistent Bitcoin ETF inflows underscore a “fundamental change in how digital assets are being adopted and viewed,” Farzam Ehsani, co-founder and CEO of crypto exchange VALR, told DL News. “Capital is now entering through regulated, allocation-driven channels.”
The latest leg up confirms what many in the industry have been predicting for months, that regulated ETFs are transforming the market from a trading-driven cycle into one anchored by strategic institutional allocation.
That institutional capital will stabilise during periods of volatility, and reshape crypto into an “allocation-led market built for sustained growth,” Ehsani said.
Bitcoin’s new record high reflects “a perfect storm of factors driving demand higher,” David Siemer, CEO of Wave Digital Assets, the crypto asset management firm, told DL News.
ETF inflows are fuelling unprecedented institutional participation just as the Federal Reserve’s pivot toward rate cuts weakens the dollar and lifts risk appetite, he said.
He added that the combination of political gridlock in Washington and the weakening dollar “has created an environment where even modest demand creates outsized moves.”
After a sideways September, institutional crypto conviction is back, Adam Saville-Brown, head of commercial at yield platform Tesseract, told DL News.
ETFs are attracting traditional finance capital and transforming crypto into an “investable asset class,” he said.
“This surge shows mainstream institutions are done sitting on the sidelines,” said Moe Levin, global chief marketing officer at layer 2 protocol Hemi.
“Sceptics have turned into believers.”
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Bitcoin is down 1% over the past 24 hours to trade at $123,00.
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Ethereum up 0.5% over the past 24 hours, trading at $4,550.
Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email lance@dlnews.com.