Spot Bitcoin ETFs Post $398.6M Net Outflow on Nov. 2 as IBIT Sheds $405.3M

US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost a combined $398.6 million in net flows on Monday, Nov. 2, according to Farside Investors data. It was the second consecutive trading day of net redemptions across the 12 products.

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) lost $405.3 million by itself. That is more than the whole category's net outflow. Fidelity's FBTC took in $6.68 million, and the remaining funds recorded no net flows.

What the numbers say

A fund's net flow is the value of shares created minus the value redeemed. It measures money entering or leaving the funds, not trading in the shares themselves.

The Nov. 2 outflow follows a much larger one on Friday, Oct. 30. That session saw $643.33 million leave, the biggest single-day net outflow since June 25. IBIT lost about $233.7 million that day and FBTC lost about $201.04 million. Turnover across bitcoin ETFs jumped to $6.35 billion.

Friday erased four straight days of inflows: $110.34 million Monday, $175.99 million Tuesday, $137.33 million Wednesday and $17.07 million Thursday. The week through Oct. 30 finished with a net outflow of $202.59 million.

October as a whole ended about $515 million in the red. That snapped three straight positive months that had brought in more than $6.2 billion combined. Funds had inflows on 13 of October's 22 sessions and outflows on nine.

The fund-level picture was uneven. IBIT took in about $932 million for the month. FBTC lost roughly $755 million, and ARK 21Shares' ARKB shed about $444 million.

Did BlackRock sell?

A post on X put the figure at $405.3 million sold by BlackRock. That number matches IBIT's Nov. 2 net outflow, so the post is describing fund flows, not a trade BlackRock made for itself.

When investors redeem shares of a spot Bitcoin ETF, the fund has to shrink its Bitcoin holdings to match. In late October, IBIT moved two large blocks of Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime, the exchange's institutional trading arm: 3,215 BTC worth about $262 million and 1,698 BTC worth about $136 million.

BlackRock has said those transfers adjust fund holdings to investor demand. The company says it is not selling on its own account and that its stance on Bitcoin has not changed.

The firm's argument rests on the structure of the product. IBIT has recorded days with inflows above $405 million, so money has moved in at similar scale before. IBIT also finished October up on net, and the week through Oct. 30 ended with $176.9 million in net inflows despite Friday's loss.

The selling is still real. Redemption-driven sales put supply on the market regardless of buyer appetite, which means short-term price pressure. Bitcoin traded around $80,000 to $82,000 in late October.

The wider market

Oct. 30 was the first trading day after a hack at Binance. Market maker Wintermute has described the market as weak since the hack and is watching $76.8K as Bitcoin support. The outflow figures do not say why individual investors redeemed.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has said he expects Bitcoin weakness until the Federal Reserve expands its balance sheet. That is his forecast, not a finding.

Other crypto funds are bleeding too. Spot Ether ETFs lost $431.53 million in the week through Oct. 30, nearly double the prior week's roughly $220.6 million. It was their fifth straight negative week, with cumulative withdrawals of about $1.65 billion over that stretch. Solana ETFs posted a record weekly outflow of $71.47 million, their fourth negative week in a row.

Still a big pile

The scale of the redemptions is small next to what these funds hold. After Monday's outflow, total Bitcoin ETF assets stand at $98.13 billion, or 6.36% of Bitcoin's market cap. IBIT's cumulative net inflows since its January 2024 launch are $65.9 billion. FBTC's are $10.18 billion. Cumulative net inflows across all Bitcoin spot ETFs total $56.58 billion.

The next test is the daily flow data for Nov. 3 and after. A third straight outflow day would extend the losing streak, and a return to inflows led by IBIT would match BlackRock's description of the recent redemptions as routine adjustment.