Bitcoin ETFs return to net outflows with $635.6 million in withdrawals

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $635.6 million in net outflows on Thursday, reversing Wednesday's inflows and marking the largest daily withdrawal since June. BlackRock's IBIT recorded net withdrawals of $254.1 million. Fidelity's FBTC lost $217.5 million. Ark Invest/21Shares' ARKB recorded $109.4 million in net outflows.

Bitwise's BITB and Grayscale's GBTC also recorded net withdrawals. However, Morgan Stanley's MSBT attracted $2.3 million in net inflows. The other ETFs recorded no net flows that day. Morgan Stanley's Bitcoin ETF has experienced only one day of net outflows since launching in April this year.

However, Bitcoin ETFs still recorded $442.7 million in net inflows for the week. The funds attracted $526.7 million on Monday. Tuesday's net inflows totaled $23.2 million. Wednesday brought another $528.4 million in net inflows.

Before Thursday's reversal, Tesseract Group senior DeFi analyst Lorris Beziers described the earlier inflows as evidence that ETF demand persisted despite weakness across markets. Beziers said the next test was whether ETF inflows would continue while bitcoin remained between $80,000 and $81,000. Beziers said demand would have weakened if inflows faded and bitcoin fell below that support range.

The Block's ETF Tracker shows combined net inflows exceeding $57 billion since Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024. The tracker puts the funds' assets under management above $100 billion.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $110.6 million in net outflows on Thursday after attracting $14.9 million the previous day. Solana and Hyperliquid ETFs also recorded net withdrawals on Thursday. However, XRP funds attracted $3.6 million.

Bitcoin fell 3.4% over the past day to around $81,500 earlier on Friday as the Wall Street sell-off spread to Asian equities. Weak technology earnings, concerns about AI spending and rising geopolitical tensions accompanied the sell-off. The Nasdaq Composite declined 2.6% on Thursday, recording the index's worst session since June. The S&P 500 fell 1.2%, marking the index's worst daily performance since July. CoinGlass data show at least $440 million in leveraged cryptocurrency positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, including $397 million in long positions.

STS Digital's head of U.S., Jeff Anderson, said bitcoin remained closely linked to technology stocks, with concerns about AI valuations and debt pressuring markets. Anderson said the move had limited significance within bitcoin's recent $80,000 to $86,000 trading range, while watching for a break beyond those levels.

Despite broader market weakness, Derive founder and CEO Nick Forster said the platform's implied probability of bitcoin exceeding $100,000 by Christmas rose over the past week from 9.7% to 12%. Forster, a former Susquehanna options trader, said the implied probability of bitcoin falling below $70,000 declined from 15.6% to 11%. Forster said traders had increased exposure to year-end gains while spending less on protection against a sharp decline.