Key Points
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced a net withdrawal of $344 million in April.
- Grayscale’s GBTC fund led the outflows with $2.5 billion exiting in April.
In April, the excitement surrounding spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) began to wane alongside the cryptocurrency’s price. As a result, these new U.S. ETFs saw net outflows totaling $343.5 million, marking the end of a three-month streak of inflows.
Previously, these ETFs had seen a remarkable inflow trend, attracting $1.5 billion, $6 billion, and $4.6 billion in January, February, and March respectively. However, the overall flow significantly decelerated after reaching a peak daily inflow of $1.05 billion on March 12. Following this, Bitcoin saw an 18% drop from its all-time high of $73,836 on March 14 to the end of April.
Outflows and Inflows in Detail
The outflows in April were largely driven by Grayscale’s high-fee GBTC fund, which saw $2.5 billion exit over the month. Ark Invest’s ARKB experienced $86.3 million in monthly net outflows, and Valkyrie’s BRRR also noted minor net outflows of $0.3 million in April. Despite this, other funds recorded net inflows during the same period, although Fidelity’s FBTC and Bitwise’s BITB also marked their first daily outflows in April.
BlackRock’s IBIT led the net inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs, drawing in $1.5 billion in April, followed by $556.1 million for Fidelity’s FBTC and $125 million for Bitwise’s BITB. However, IBIT’s 71-day inflow streak ended on April 23, and the fund has since seen five consecutive days of zero flows.
On Tuesday, Ark Invest’s ARKB was the only spot bitcoin ETF to record net inflows, adding $3.6 million. In contrast, outflows from Grayscale’s GBTC ($93.2 million), Fidelity’s FBTC ($35.3 million), and Bitwise’s BITB ($34.3 million) resulted in net outflows of $161.6 million for the day, as per CoinGlass data.
Current Status of Spot Bitcoin ETFs
The total net inflows for all U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs since trading began on January 11, have now fallen below the $12 billion mark, standing at $11.8 billion. The daily trading volume for these ETFs has also seen a significant decline after peaking at $9.9 billion on March 5, when bitcoin first surpassed its previous peak of around $69,000. The trading volume recorded on Tuesday was $2.9 billion.
Despite the run of daily zero flows, BlackRock’s IBIT is still on track to surpass Grayscale’s converted GBTC fund in terms of assets under management (AUM). As of now, IBIT has 274,462 BTC ($15.6 billion) in AUM, compared to GBTC’s 296,714 BTC ($16.9 billion).
Since the start of spot bitcoin ETF trading, GBTC’s converted fund has seen its assets decrease by 52% from 619,220 BTC. However, considering the rise in bitcoin’s price during this period, this equates to a smaller 41% drop in U.S. dollar terms from $28.6 billion on January 11.
Bitcoin’s price has also had a rough start in May, falling around 6% in a single day to briefly dip below the $57,000 level for the first time since February. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading at $57,275.
