Investors pulled over $1 billion from the funds in October even as on-chain staking kept setting records
US spot Ethereum ETFs just finished a month they would probably like to forget. The funds logged 23 consecutive trading days of net outflows, the longest losing streak since they launched in July 2024, according to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.
The run stretched through October 30, 2026. That is roughly a full month of investors heading for the exits with no single day of net buying to break the pattern.
The timing makes it stranger. While ETF holders were pulling money out, Ethereum staking activity on-chain kept climbing to record levels. Two groups of Ethereum investors appear to be reading the same asset in very different ways.
A billion-dollar October
The October damage added up to more than $1 billion in net outflows. That makes it the largest monthly drain these products have seen in 2026.
October 30 alone accounted for $155.8 million in net outflows.
The reversal looks sharper against the prior month. In September, the same group of funds pulled in inflows of $832 million. October did not just erase that momentum. It flipped the direction entirely.
Ethereum’s price stayed in a range between $2,200 and $2,500 throughout the outflow period.
BlackRock leads the exodus
BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust, which trades under the ticker ETHA, was the leading contributor to the outflows and frequently made up a large portion of daily redemptions.
On October 30, ETHA saw $76.6 million leave the fund. That is just under half of the $155.8 million that left all US spot Ethereum ETFs that day.
BlackRock was not alone. Grayscale’s two products, ETHE and the lower-fee ETH, also registered meaningful outflows. Fidelity’s FETH contributed to the selling as well, along with smaller issuers including Bitwise and VanEck.
Context: still well in the green overall
For all the red ink in October, the longer-term picture is less dramatic. Cumulative net inflows into US spot Ethereum ETFs since launch hovered around $12.29 billion as of October 30.
Total net assets across the products stood at approximately $13.22 billion at the end of the month.
The products have now been trading for a little over two years since their July 2024 debut.
The staking split
On-chain staking continued setting records during the same window that ETF investors were withdrawing.
So one camp of Ethereum holders was digging in, while another camp, the one accessing ETH through traditional brokerage wrappers, was cashing out.
What this means
The research behind this report frames the outflows as pointing to precarious sentiment among institutional investors and a potential cooling of interest in Ethereum following months of robust inflows. The funds still hold approximately $13.22 billion in net assets.
With ETH holding between $2,200 and $2,500 through more than $1 billion in redemptions, the market showed it could absorb sustained ETF selling without a disorderly drop.
ETHA has become the bellwether for institutional Ethereum demand, with $76.6 million in redemptions on October 30 alone accounting for nearly half of that day’s total outflows across all US spot Ethereum ETFs.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.