This headline may seem like outrage fodder, but given the current spill rate, it is an objective truth. Since Bitcoin hit its all-time high last October, the U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF has recorded outflows in 55 out of 89 days. If things don’t improve by the next halving, there will be a significant drop in BTC in the ETF wrapper on that day.
Before we consider how quickly ETFs could head towards zero, let’s look at the current situation from a “glass half-full” perspective (skip ahead if you just want the bearish view).
Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas today pointed to a number he believes is more important than most: cumulative net inflows into the U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF.
He stressed that the total amount reached about $63 billion in October and now stands at about $53 billion, with about $8 billion outflowing during the plunge.
What he wanted to say was simple. A lot of money came in and a lot of it stayed.
This is important because the tone of the narrative surrounding Bitcoin’s relationship with Wall Street is starting to change.
A simple version would look like this: ETFs appeared, financial institutions appeared, and Bitcoin “grew up.” Then the market reversed and the same financial institutions headed for the exits. Reality seems messier and more human.
Zooming out, the ETF era still appears to have been a shocking success by net intake.
Even after the recent hemorrhage, cumulative net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs remain at around $54.31 billion, a huge number for a product category that is only a few years old.
When you zoom in, the last few months feel like another movie.
Since the October crash, $8.66 billion has been removed from the U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETF, sending Bitcoin down more than 40% from its October peak of around $126,000.
These two truths can exist together and still describe the same world. People buy for different reasons and sell for different reasons. The glossy wrapper turns Bitcoin into something you can click in your brokerage account while eating lunch, and that single change provides a wide range of incentives for trading.
It resonates with people outside of Wall Street who live in the mix. “Institutional adoption” looks like thousands of committees, advisors, platforms, and individuals making small choices that add up to a huge, visible tape.
The tape invites storytelling, but it also invites mistakes, as the daily updated numbers feel like a verdict.
But to understand the underlying trading happening on Wall Street, you need to combine ETF outflows with another signal: Chicago Mercantile Exchange futures exposure. This is because authorized participants (and other institutions) use futures to arbitrage risk and profit from their role in contributing BTC to the ETF stock basket.
CME’s exposure has fallen by about two-thirds from its peak at the end of 2024 to about $8 billion, consistent with the sense that the largest and cleanest facilities have less risk than those at the top.
The footprints of Wall Street appear one after another.
CME itself has published a dashboard on Bitcoin futures volume and activity, and the broader message is easy to understand, with each rally attempt feeling different as participation expands, participation contracts are signed, and contracts are signed in multiple venues at once.
Coinbase, a favorite of many US institutions, is trading at a discount to offshore exchange Binance, indicating continued selling in the US. If you’re trying to understand why Bitcoin feels heavy even as other risk assets are finding buyers, the details matter.
Flow stories also have texture, and texture is where the people are. In mid-January, the Spot Bitcoin ETF cohort raised approximately $760 million in a single day, its largest single-day gain since October, with Fidelity’s FBTC accounting for the bulk of that. It’s not completely washed away, but the good days far outweigh the bad.
Yet much of the institutional story lives in these overlapping signals, steady accumulation over a lifetime paralleling jagged explosive selloffs, and sudden days when buyers appear to be reorganizing.
The difficult part is determining which signals will affect the next month and which signals will affect the last month.
The macro still sets the temperature
Sometimes the simplest driver is sitting outside the room.
Reuters reported in February that U.S. stock funds had net outflows of about $1.42 billion in the week to Feb. 11, due to uncertainties over interest rate cuts in the wake of strong jobs data, as well as concerns over large corporate spending related to AI. By contrast, bond funds attracted money. This is a classic risk screening moment, and Bitcoin tends to feel it more than it would like to admit.
As interest rates remain restrictive, portfolios remain selective and investors move towards cleaner stories. Bitcoin has fallen more than 40% from its October high of around $126,000, but stocks and precious metals have found buyers, showing that the market is treating Bitcoin like a liquidity-sensitive asset.
Balchunas’ flowchart is in that context. The cumulative numbers are still huge, arriving faster than most predictions, and the short-term tape shows how quickly confidence can change when prices fall.
Bitcoin ETFs will die a slow death
The latest AUM snapshot puts the total at $98.3 billion.
The center of gravity is clear: IBIT stands alone at $57.01 billion, followed by FBTC at $13.94 billion and GBTC at $12.58 billion, forming the next tier, followed by a cluster with BITB at $5.79 billion and ARKB at $5.36 billion.
Then you can see the long tail where the numbers still matter in a different way. HODL is $1.37 billion, EZBC is $728.57 million, BTCO is $696.58 million, BTCW is $462.49 million, and BRRR is $398 million.
This spread tells a human story as well as a market story. Because it shows how liquidity and trust can quickly become concentrated when financial institutions decide a product is the “default” choice, and how everyone else has to fight for attention even as the entire category continues to grow.
Considering that $8.66 billion has been out of the ETF over 89 trading days since October 10, 2025, that’s approximately $90 million per trading day.
If we keep this pace constant and treat the current $98 billion AUM as a starting point, it will take approximately 1,011 trading days for the wrapper to be effectively depleted.
Practically speaking, assuming nothing changes, this equates to about four years of weekday-sized hemorrhage by the time the ETF complex hits a wall in early January 2030.
In reality, few would expect Bitcoin to avoid any kind of rally over the next four years. However, we are likely to see continued pressure throughout the bear market. Now let’s consider what the situation could be if the bear market does not end by the next halving.
The next Bitcoin halving is estimated to be around April 11, 2028, approximately 558 business days from here. This provides a useful horizon for stress testing what “sticky” demand actually looks like.
Using the same execution rate assumption, that would leave us with approximately $44 billion in AUM by the next halving.
Whether or not you convert that to BTC will depend on the price, but if Bitcoin’s spot level is around the mid-$60,000s, that means there’s still 662,000 BTC left in the wrapper.
However, if we consider that “the cumulative net inflow will be zero” and “there will be no BTC left in the ETF,” the situation looks even worse.
Using the pace of outflows since October 10th, $53 billion / $90 million = 590 trading days, which would be around mid-2028, right after the halving (depending on flows and number of holidays).
What to watch next
Thought experiments aside, let’s start by looking at the daily ETF flow tape.
As the outflow cools into a flatter pattern, sentiment often accompanies it. As traffic continues over multiple sessions, headlines can change rapidly as well. As a simple triangulation tool beyond major outlets, CoinGlass helps you track ETF flows in one place and see the rhythm of the tape.
Next, observe CME participation. A stabilization and then rise in open interest and activity usually means bigger players are taking risks in the cleanest venues in the US. CME’s own page helps you track your travel direction over time.
Also keep an eye on the US vs. offshore spread. Coinbase Prints Continuous Discounts on Binance, Reinforces US Sell Signal. This discount contraction signals easing pressure on the US side of the market.
Macro volatility remains the backdrop. Fund flow data can be viewed with weekly pulse checks to see how strained the largest pools of funds are. Changes in expectations for interest rate cuts, changes in stock prices, tightening of credit, these changes tend to be transmitted quickly through Bitcoin.
This set of signals guarantees little and provides a map of how the next chapter will read.
The real takeaway from this ETF chapter is that Bitcoin has a public scoreboard of institutional investor behavior, and that scoreboard is part of the market itself.
As their numbers increase, they invite new believers. As the numbers drop, new questions arise. If this number remains positive for many years, it rewrites the baseline and forces everyone to treat Wall Street relationships as troubling.
So when we write about the need for an immediate reversal in ETF trends, the current bear market has short-term relevance.
But if it doesn’t reverse at all, the entire narrative around Bitcoin could flip and things could get very ugly. Sustaining selling pressure of $53 billion to $98 billion is not something Bitcoin can easily handle.
(Tag Translation)Bitcoin
