US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $283 million in net outflows on Thursday, the third consecutive day of withdrawals, as hotter-than-expected producer price data pushed investors toward bets the Federal Reserve will raise rates this month.
According to data cited by Odaily and Lookonchain, ARKB, the ARK 21Shares fund, led the outflows with $164.3 million leaving the fund. GBTC saw $36.4 million exit, while Fidelity’s FBTC lost $33.6 million. No major spot bitcoin fund posted meaningful inflows on the day, and the three-day streak has now erased most of the gains from what had been the strongest inflow run of the year.
The reversal is stark. As recently as Thursday last week, the funds still pulled in positive flows even as bitcoin briefly dipped below $79,000, and the prior three-week stretch had drawn nearly $3.8 billion into the products, the best run of 2026. Since then, sentiment has flipped on the macro side almost overnight.
Inflation data drives the reversal
Thursday’s August producer price index came in roughly three times above forecast, sending the 30-year Treasury yield to a 19-year high and lifting the probability of a September rate hike toward 58% on major prediction platforms. Equities sold off on the news, and crypto followed with a lag of hours rather than days.
Bitcoin struggled to hold the $79,000 level in Asian trading Friday, staying pinned below $80,000 after failing to reclaim it earlier in the week. The asset remains about 7% lower year to date and roughly 35% below its October 2025 all-time high above $126,000. Traders who had bet on a September rally built around expected Fed easing are now unwinding those positions as the hike scenario gains ground.
The bond market’s message has been hard to ignore. Yields have climbed for weeks on supply concerns and sticky inflation, and bitcoin’s correlation with gold, which hit a six-year high earlier this month, has offered little protection. When long-end yields rise this fast, both assets tend to bleed together.
Ether ETFs also bled, though more modestly. US ether spot funds posted $29.9 million in net outflows, with FETH down $25.2 million and ETHA down $18.6 million. Two funds bucked the trend: BlackRock’s ETHB added $13.9 million and Bitwise’s ETH took in $7.7 million. The split suggests some buyers are treating the ether dip as an entry point even as the wider category sees red.
Flows still negative on the year
The streak keeps year-to-date flows deeply negative. After a $2.52 billion deficit accumulated through mid-year, the recent inflow burst only trimmed the gap before inflation fears slammed the window shut again. Month-to-date net flows were modest even before the current retreat, leaving ETF demand far below the pace set during the 2024 and 2025 launch cycles, when the products routinely absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars in a single session.
Analysts at Bernstein have argued that the muted flows fit a “boring cycle” thesis, in which steady institutional adoption continues even as the market chops sideways and fails to deliver the momentum trades that defined earlier cycles. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas has made a similar point, calling individual outflow days noise against a broader adoption trend that shows up in custody growth, options volume and basis trades rather than headline flows.
The counterargument is simpler: the funds were marketed as the bridge between Wall Street and crypto, and three straight red days with bitcoin below $80,000 suggests that bridge swings both ways. Fortune data showed bitcoin trading at $78,154 on September 1, and it has spent the week since fighting to get back above the round number. Each failed attempt has produced a fresh wave of outflows.
| Fund | Thursday flow |
|---|---|
| ARKB (ARK 21Shares) | -$164.3M |
| GBTC (Grayscale) | -$36.4M |
| FBTC (Fidelity) | -$33.6M |
| ETHB (BlackRock, ether) | +$13.9M |
| ETH (Bitwise, ether) | +$7.7M |
What comes next
Attention now shifts to next week’s consumer price index and the September 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Fed governor Christopher Waller signaled earlier this month that he is open to holding rates steady if inflation continues to ease, a softer line than the one taken by chair Kevin Warsh after the last FOMC meeting. The gap between those two positions is essentially the gap between a risk-on and a risk-off September for crypto.
There is also a supply story running underneath the flows. Strategy disclosed earlier this month that it bought 4,603 BTC for about $369.7 million at an average price of $80,318, its first purchase after a two-month pause, bringing holdings to 845,050 BTC. Corporate treasuries have absorbed coins on dips all year, and that bid is the main reason the market has not broken lower despite the ETF retreat.
Privacy coins were the one corner of the market still rallying through the gloom. Zcash traded near $1,200 on Friday, up 45% on the week, boosted by Grayscale’s ZCSH ETF inflows and a wave of short liquidations that forced leveraged sellers to buy back. The token’s strength has little to do with the rate debate and more to do with a squeeze that began when the Grayscale product started absorbing supply faster than miners and holders were willing to sell.
For the ETF complex, the calculation is unchanged: if the Fed hikes, expect more red days. If it holds and signals a pause, the inflow machine that produced the best three weeks of 2026 could restart as quickly as it stopped. The market will not have to wait long to find out.