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Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows fall 81% in three sessions from the year's record day
US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $191 million on Thursday, 81% below Monday's $999 million record, as their inflow streak passed six days and $2.8 billion. BlackRock's IBIT took about 85% of the day's money, so the other eleven funds slowed far more than the total shows.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Daily inflows fell to $714.75 million on Tuesday and $347 million on Wednesday before Thursday's total, three shrinking sessions in a row.
- Monday's record, set on September 21, was the biggest day for the funds since early October 2025 and came as Bitcoin briefly topped $87,000.
- IBIT drew roughly $1.35 billion over the six sessions, close to half the category's inflows, according to Farside Investors data cited by Cointelegraph.
- Fidelity's FBTC added $12.86 million on Thursday, while WisdomTree's BTCW lost $4.02 million, the only fund with an outflow.
- Glider chief executive Brian Huang said bitcoin futures open interest is back to May levels, with about $3.3 billion on Hyperliquid's BTC perpetuals.
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Why it matters
- contradiction Cryptopolitan puts Bitcoin's gain over the week at about 3.6%, while Cointelegraph, citing CoinGecko, puts it at about 8%. So it is unsettled whether six days of buying followed a modest move or a sharp rally.
- constraint Huang said a negative basis with rising open interest means new shorts. With futures below spot, buying ETF shares and shorting futures against them costs the spread, so hedged carry trades are a weak explanation for the week's inflows.
- exposure Eleven issuers are splitting a shrinking remainder of the money, so a break in the streak would reach their books before it reached BlackRock's.
Each session gave back a large share of the one before it. Tuesday's total was about 28% below Monday's, Wednesday's about 51% below Tuesday's, and Thursday's about 45% below Wednesday's [1]. Those four sessions add up to roughly $2.25 billion, so the first two days of the streak, starting on September 17, brought in at least $548 million between them [2][2].
Against the size of the funds, the whole run is small. The 12 funds ended Thursday with about $108.92 billion of combined net assets. That puts Thursday's inflow at roughly 0.18% of the base and the six-day streak at about 2.6% [12][7]. They traded $2.27 billion of shares on the day, and net new money came to about 8% of that turnover [8].
The slowdown is uneven across issuers. IBIT averaged about $225 million a session over the streak, and its $162.63 million on Thursday was about 72% of that pace [8][6]. The other eleven funds took about $28 million between them on Thursday [4]. Over the six sessions they had averaged roughly $242 million a day, so Thursday ran at about 12% of their own pace [5].
The flow data are reported fund by fund and do not identify the buyers, so they cannot show whether institutions in particular are pulling back [8][10]. The decline does line up with price. Bitcoin has slipped to about $83,800 from Monday's brief move above $87,000, a fall of roughly 3.7% [6][9].
Flows could keep following price and climb again if Bitcoin recovers. The streak could break, with the first outflows coming from funds already running near zero. Or IBIT could keep absorbing new money while the other eleven go flat. In my view the evidence fits the third path best: a bid that is slowing and narrowing into one fund while net money still arrives [6][5]. The counter-thesis is that Monday, the largest day since early October 2025, was an outlier, and a decline from an outlier says little about a trend [5]. The narrowing view is wrong if IBIT's daily figure drops toward the others' pace, or if the other eleven recover while IBIT slows.
What to watch
- Whether Friday's flows turn negative, ending the streak at six sessions, and which funds carry the first outflow.
- Whether Bitcoin retakes $87,000 and daily inflows climb back toward Tuesday's $714.75 million, a sign that flows are following price.
- Whether futures open interest keeps rising while the basis stays negative, the pattern Huang reads as new shorts.