Most US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs have started to see substantial withdrawals and the total amount has shot up to more than $500 million in the past week alone, even though it was just a four-day trading week.
These developments have undoubtedly harmed BTC’s price movements, which have been closely related to the ETF flows.
Spot ETF Outflows Skyrocket
Ever since mid-January, when the US SEC reluctantly approved nearly a dozen spot Bitcoin ETFs, these financial vehicles have been at the forefront of investor adoption, especially from those who refrained from entering the landscape before this regulatory nod.
There have been a few trends established in the past five months or so. It all started quite positively as the ETFs saw consecutive days of inflows from January 26 to February 20. Things changed in late April and early May when investors pulled out a lot, especially on May 1.
The tides turned once again in mid-May to early June when the ETFs established their longest streak of positive flows (19 days). Yet, the uncertainty in the US economy, including the Fed’s refusal to reduce the interest rates, have turned the tables in the past ten days or so.
In fact, there have been outflows in the past eight out of nine trading days. The only exception was on June 12, with $100.8 million in inflows.
The past week, even though trading on Wall Street was open for just four days, saw only withdrawals. According to FarSide, just shy of $550 million was pulled out of the ETFs.
Interestingly, Fidelity’s FBTC has seen the most outflows, surpassing even Grayscale’s GBTC. On Friday, $44.8 million was taken out of FBTC and $34.2 out of GBTC. Ark Invest’s ARKB was also in the red.
BTC Price Drops
As mentioned above, BTC’s price movements have been strongly correlated to the ETF flows. As such, it’s no surprise that the underlying asset has underperformed in the past week or so.
Aside from a brief spike from $66,000 to $67,200 on Monday, bitcoin has been predominantly losing value. This culminated yesterday evening when it slumped to a five-week low of $63,300. Despite recovering about a grand since then, BTC is still about 3% down on the week, and its market cap has declined to $1.265 trillion.
