Bitcoin ETF snapshot: GBTC drives second straight week of outflows

Though demand for US spot bitcoin ETFs has slowed down, the category snapped a five-day outflow streak on the day of the bitcoin halving.

The 11-fund segment collectively brought in $60 million of assets during Friday’s trading hours, according to Farside Investors data.

The bitcoin halving — when per-block rewards paid to miners dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC — occurred at about 8 pm ET that night.

US bitcoin funds had seen $319 million of net outflows over a five-day span prior to Friday.

Overall, US spot bitcoin ETFs endured net outflows for the second straight week, amounting to $204 million from April 15 to April 19.

The driver of last week’s outflows was the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), which hemorrhaged $458 million.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) were unable to fully offset those GBTC asset losses — tallying net inflows last week of $165 million and $94 million, respectively.

Grayscale revealed a planned fee of 0.15% for its Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) — substantially lower than GBTC’s fee of 1.5%. GBTC intends to seed the spin-off fund, and a portion of the bitcoin holdings would be allocated to the new proposed fund.

Trading volumes for crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) more broadly dipped to $18 billion last week, according to CoinShares head of research James Butterfill.

These volumes represent 28% of total bitcoin volumes, he added in a Monday report — a significant drop from 55% a month ago.

“The data suggests appetite from ETP/ETF investors continues to wane, likely off the back of expectations that the Fed is likely to keep interest rates at these high levels for longer than expected,” Butterfill wrote.

BlackRock ended the week with an active daily net inflow streak of 69 days.

IBIT’s daily inflow run is the 11th-best streak for an ETF, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas.

The BlackRock bitcoin fund’s net inflows during the first quarter represented about 20% of the asset management giant’s ETF inflows over that span.

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