HedgeCo.Net — U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds posted net outflows of $228.6 million in the week ended Friday, October 16, according to SoSoValue data cited by Decrypt, following a $681.1 million drain the week before. That brings two-week redemptions to roughly $910 million and leaves the funds down about $615 million for October after they opened the month with roughly $293 million of inflows.
Friday’s session alone saw $82.4 million leave the funds. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust accounted for $71.8 million of that and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund for $10.6 million, according to Farside Investors data relayed by a KuCoin market update. Spot ether ETFs lost $69.7 million the same day and are down about $955 million for the month, the same data showed.
The week was choppy rather than one-directional. A $175.7 million inflow on Tuesday was more than wiped out by $261.4 million in redemptions on Wednesday, the week’s worst session, before a modest $5.1 million inflow on Thursday, Decrypt reported. Wednesday’s selling coincided with a consumer price index reading showing 3.7% annual inflation in September, above the 3.6% forecast, which revived bets on further Federal Reserve rate increases.
Price action reinforced the caution. Bitcoin briefly slipped below $80,000 on Thursday, and nearly $950 million of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, about 90% of them long bets, according to CoinGlass data cited by Decrypt. That move pushed bitcoin below the average ETF holder’s estimated cost basis near $82,300, a Nexo analyst said. Bitcoin closed Friday near $81,590.
Even with the outflows, the products remain a fixture of institutional crypto exposure, with cumulative net inflows of $57.3 billion since their January 2024 launch and total net assets of about $104 billion, per SoSoValue. For allocators and crypto fund managers, the flow data is a real-time read on adviser and institutional sentiment, and this month it has moved closely with interest-rate expectations.