Outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have picked up over the past few weeks, but the numbers look less dramatic when placed against the enormous amount of money that poured into these funds since launch.
The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT)
began seeing steady redemptions on Oct. 29. Since then, about $2.9 billion has come out of the fund. Those are sizable outflows, but they amount to only about 4.6% of IBIT’s $62.6 billion of lifetime inflows since its Jan. 11 launch.
Other U.S.-listed bitcoin ETFs have followed similar patterns. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC)
has shed $783 million over the past month, equal to about 6.2% of its total inflows. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB)
has seen $300 million come out, or roughly 14.3% of its lifetime flows. The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB)
is down by $127 million, or 5.3%, while the VanEck Bitcoin (HODL)
has seen $89 million exit, about 6.7% of what it took in.
Barely In The Green
While outflows have been relatively modest, a more revealing story sits beneath those flow numbers and points to how investors in these funds have actually performed. Even though spot bitcoin ETFs debuted when bitcoin was around $46,000—roughly half of today’s price—most of the money didn’t arrive at those levels.
IBIT is the clearest example. Of its $62.6 billion of lifetime inflows, about $31 billion came in over the past year, a period when bitcoin spent much of its time above $100,000. Almost anyone who bought during that stretch is now either flat or underwater.
That helps explain why IBIT’s assets currently sit near $69 billion despite nearly $63 billion of net inflows and a doubling of bitcoin’s price since launch.
A substantial portion of the fund’s shareholder base bought at significantly higher prices, leaving the collective investor return only slightly positive today. Other spot bitcoin ETFs saw heavier inflows earlier in their lifecycle, when bitcoin was lower, so they don’t reflect the same degree of pressure, but the pattern still holds to a lesser extent.
There’s two takeaways from this data. One is that recent outflows may look large on the surface, but they’re still small relative to the huge wave of money that entered these ETFs since their debut. At the same time, the timing of those inflows means investors are sitting on gains far smaller than bitcoin’s headline performance suggests, with a meaningful slice now hovering at or below breakeven.
