According to Blockworks, US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) experienced net outflows last week, a rare event that has only occurred twice since these funds were launched three months ago. The 11-fund category lost $83 million in assets from April 8 to April 12, a significant decrease from the net inflows of $485 million the previous week. Since January 11, spot bitcoin ETFs have collectively received $12.5 billion in positive flows.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) was the only US BTC fund to consistently see outflows, with $767 million leaving last week. The negative net flows of GBTC were not fully offset by the asset-gathering leaders, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), which brought in $487 million and $90 million, respectively.
The bitcoin fund segment has only seen two weeks of net outflows prior to last week, losing $417 million in assets from January 22 to January 26 and $888 million from March 18 to March 22. The highest net inflows in a week for the category reached $2.5 billion from March 11 to March 15.
The recent outflows occurred during a week when bitcoin’s price fell approximately 5% to $65,650 by Friday and dipped below $62,000 on Saturday. Matteo Greco, a research analyst at Fineqia, suggested that the net money leaving US spot bitcoin ETFs indicates 'increased profit-taking and investor caution' following the strong uptrend over the last two quarters. Trading volumes into the funds were about average last week, standing at about $3.2 billion per day.
James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, noted in a Monday report that investors appear hesitant as the positive price momentum has stalled. Bitcoin’s price reached an all-time high above $73,500 on March 14 and was above $72,000 as recently as April 8. The asset’s price was around $66,200 at 7:30 am ET on Monday, down about 4.5% from a week ago. Butterfill added that ETF activity dropped relative to the overall market, from 40% of total volumes on trusted exchanges over the last month to 31% last week, demonstrating this caution among investors.
