On May 18, the net outflow from American spot bitcoin ETFs reached $648.6 million, marking the worst daily result since late January.
The primary pressure was on BlackRock’s IBIT ($448 million), followed by 21Shares’ ARKB ($109 million) and Fidelity’s FBTC ($63 million).
Other funds showed minor changes.
Investors withdrew $86 million from Ethereum instruments. The smaller outflow is likely due to reduced institutional interest in the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Outflows from crypto products have continued since last week. Between May 11 and 15, bitcoin ETFs lost $1 billion, while ETH ETFs saw outflows of $255 million.
Despite a series of sell-offs, the sector’s overall result since the launch of the funds remains positive. As of the time of writing, the total net inflow into bitcoin funds since launch has reached $57.6 billion.
Asset management companies control about 6.25% of the digital gold’s issuance, with a total value exceeding $100 billion.
Ethereum funds have slightly more modest results, with a net inflow of $11.75 billion and $12.2 billion in assets under management (~4.77% of supply).
Market Conditions
Outflows from institutional structures occur amid a correction in bitcoin prices. Over the past week, the coin has lost nearly 5%.
Currently, the leading cryptocurrency is trading around $76,800.
Most top-10 altcoins by market capitalization are also in the “red zone.”
Ethereum has fallen to $2,100 (-7% over seven days), BNB is trading at $640 (-3%), and SOL at $84 (-11%).
The cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index has once again entered the “extreme fear” zone, dropping to 25 points.
An analyst under the pseudonym Darkforst noted the disappearance of realized profits among bitcoin investors. The weekly average is now around $1.7 billion, similar to levels seen at the end of the 2022 bear market.
📉 Realized profits across the market have been almost completely wiped out.
With BTC trading around $80,000, very few investors seem able to realize meaningful profits, or at least not on a significant scale.
💥 Weekly averaged realized profit is now sitting around $1.7B,… pic.twitter.com/kS4t93Gexc
— Darkfost (@Darkfost_Coc) May 19, 2026
“It seems that at a price of around $80,000, only a few investors have been able to realize substantial profits, at least on a significant scale,” the expert noted.
MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe pointed out that a gap remains on the CME at the $79,100 level.
#Bitcoin doesn’t look great.
Far from it.
Five consecutive days of red candles, liquidations on the long side, Michael Saylor buying another $2 billion in assets, and there’s no momentum at all taking place.
There’s still an outstanding CME gap at $79,100 waiting for the… pic.twitter.com/PMYTp0sIdy
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) May 19, 2026
He considers this mark a critically important resistance area, the breach of which should restore market momentum. In a negative scenario, the analyst expects a drop to around $65,000.
Among the restraining factors, van de Poppe highlighted the rise in oil prices and bond yields.
Earlier, JPMorgan suggested that Ethereum might continue to lag behind Bitcoin.