Bitcoin ETF Sees Daily Outflow Exceeding $500 Million

On February 24, amid a downturn in the cryptocurrency market, net outflows from spot Bitcoin-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) reached $516.41 million.

This figure was a record for February and the third largest since the beginning of the year.

The cumulative inflow since the approval of BTC-ETF in January decreased to $39.04 billion. The AUM of the products fell to $109.26 billion.

The largest daily outflow on Monday was recorded by FBTC from Fidelity — $246.96 million. It was followed by IBIT products from BlackRock with $158.59 million and GBTC from Grayscale with $59.5 million.

Data for the Ark Invest fund was not published at the time of writing.

Investors withdrew $78.09 million from spot Ethereum-ETFs on February 24, with $48.21 million attributed to ETHA from BlackRock.

Consulting firm BRN noted that funds have been losing volume for two weeks following a peak on February 7. In their view, this reflects a lack of institutional support, preventing Bitcoin from breaking out of the $94,000-98,000 range.

“The outflow indicates that the initial wave of investors interested in digital assets is now fully distributed. Moving forward, ETFs will need fresh demand or a broader market catalyst to resume inflows,” said BRN analyst Valentin Fournier to The Block.

David Foley, managing partner of the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, described the movement of funds out of the ETFs as “unsurprising.”

“It all seems very controlled to us after significant growth in November and December. Now investors are starting the first quarter by assessing the overall directions of the economy and asset markets for the year,” he added.

According to research by 10x Research, a large portion of volumes in Bitcoin-ETFs (56%) is related to arbitrage. Traders profit from the difference between spot and futures prices. 

Under current conditions, funding rates and basis spreads are too low to justify holding positions and opening new ones, noted Marcus Thielen, founder and head of research at the firm.

Bitwise forecasts that by 2025, net inflows into spot Bitcoin-ETFs could exceed $50 billion.