US spot bitcoin ETFs saw $148.7 million in combined net outflows Wednesday, ending a nine-day inflow streak that had pulled in $3.08 billion. The break, recorded in Block data compiled Wednesday, came as bitcoin traded back below $84,000 after briefly topping that level following a softer-than-expected PCE inflation print the day before. The timing made the break look less like panic and more like a pause at the end of a long run.
Fidelity’s FBTC led the outflows with $125.6 million for the day. Bitwise’s BITB shed $13.6 million. BlackRock’s IBIT, the largest fund and normally the dominant flow magnet, saw $9.5 million exit, ending its own nine-day, $1.6 billion inflow run. The remaining funds registered zero flows. The streak had been one of the most consistent stretches in these funds’ history, with daily inflows that included a near $1 billion day on September 29.
| Fund | Wednesday flow | Note |
|---|---|---|
| FBTC (Fidelity) | -$125.6M | largest single-fund outflow of the day |
| BITB (Bitwise) | -$13.6M | second-largest outflow |
| IBIT (BlackRock) | -$9.5M | ended its own nine-day, $1.6B run |
| Others | $0 | no flows recorded |
The streak that almost was
The nine-day run had been gradually weakening even before it broke. Daily inflows peaked near $1 billion on September 29, then fell sharply over the following days. Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas, commenting before the latest figures, noted that lifetime cumulative flows for the bitcoin ETFs were closing in on a new high water mark, which he described as astonishing given what the funds had weathered over the past eleven months.
Bloomberg’s James Seyffart took a more measured view, pointing out that the funds remain about $5 billion away from their cumulative flow peak on October 10, 2025. That gap is a useful corrective to the enthusiasm around the streak. Getting close to a record is not the same as setting one, and the $148.7 million outflow pushes the milestone a bit further out. The two analysts were looking at the same data and reaching different conclusions about how close the record really is, which is a fair summary of where sentiment sits.
Prior to the outflows, the streak had flipped 2026 net flows back positive after the funds sat roughly $5.8 billion in the red in mid-July, just two months earlier.
Year-to-date context
Since their debut in January 2024, the US spot bitcoin ETFs have generated more than $57 billion in cumulative net inflows, with assets under management above $100 billion. Their year-to-date position flipped into positive territory during the streak, a sign of how much December through July outflows had weighed on the category. Morgan Stanley’s own bitcoin ETF, launched in April, crossed 10,000 BTC under management last week, its first time above that threshold according to the firm’s fund page.
The nine-day run is the strongest such stretch since October 2025. It came alongside three consecutive days of bitcoin trading in an $82,000 to $85,000 range, but the price and the flows did not move in lockstep. Bitcoin briefly topped $85,000 on Wednesday’s PCE print and fell back below $84,000 by Thursday, while the flows had already turned negative before the data moved. That decoupling between price action and fund flows has been a feature of this market all year, and it complicates any simple read of ETF flows as a proxy for demand.
Ethereum funds go negative again
Spot ether ETFs saw $59.6 million in net outflows on Wednesday, led by $26.6 million leaving Fidelity’s FETH fund, extending their outflow streak to two days. That reverses momentum after a prior seven-day, $850 million inflow streak. Total net inflows for the ether funds, which launched in July 2024, stand near $14 billion, roughly a quarter of the bitcoin funds’ cumulative total.
The ether funds, like their bitcoin counterparts, have become a gauge for how much institutional risk appetite is moving into crypto on any given week. Their recent pattern, big streaks followed by quick reversals, mirrors the wider market’s on-and-off risk performance this year. Ether was trading near $2,700 on Thursday, holding steady while bitcoin drifted.
What drove the break
The most likely cause is profit-taking after a strong run, not a change in underlying conviction. Bitcoin is still up roughly 7% for September, closing positive for the month, and sits in a range that has held since August. The PCE print, coming in at 0.2% monthly on core, lowered the odds of another rate hike in October, easing macro pressure on risk assets. That backdrop supports holding, not selling.
The outflow break, in that context, reads more as a moment of digestion than a reversal. Two days of that kind of flow, following a $3 billion nine-day streak, is within the normal range of churn for funds this size. A third consecutive outflow day, or a return to the $500 million weekly losses of mid-summer, would tell a different story. Coinglass data showed roughly $100 million in liquidations over 24 hours, split nearly evenly between longs and shorts, another sign that the market is balancing rather than breaking.
The streak break is the story for now. The funds remain in positive year-to-date territory, IBIT’s $1.6 billion run is over, and bitcoin is holding its range. Bloomberg’s data shows the funds are about $5 billion short of their cumulative record, leaving something for the next streak to reach for. The question, as always with these funds, is whether the next stretch of inflows comes from the same institutions rotating back in, or from a new cohort of allocators working through their own onboarding timelines.