In brief
- Bitcoin ETFs launched last year in the United States following a decade of SEC rejections.
- They have now collectively accumulated over $41 billion in net inflows to date.
- Investors were cashing out of the products in recent months, but they’ve made a comeback.
Bitcoin ETFs continue to smash expectations: the funds have now racked up flows of over $41 billion since their January 2024 launch, hitting a new all-time peak for inflows.
Data from Farside Investors shows that cumulative inflows stand at over $41.1 billion following Monday’s trading action.
It’s quite the reversal of fortunes for the Bitcoin funds, which until recently were rapidly losing funds as investors pulled away amid an unexpected and at-times erratic global trade war.
President Trump’s bellicose trade rhetoric led investors to pull out billions from the funds during February—the month in which they had their worst day ever—and March, and into the start of April, as they avoided risk-on assets.
But investors have a taste for risk again now the new commander-in-chief has calmed his tariff war. And they’re looking to Bitcoin.
The reason for the huge cumulative flows comes down to investors previously locked out from the crypto investing space now finally being able to speculate on the leading coin.
“ETFs have become one of the primary avenues through which investors in general are getting exposure to Bitcoin,” Sumit Roy, senior ETF analyst for ETF.com, told Decrypt.
Bitcoin dropped to $75,000 at one point in April, plunging from a new all-time high peak above $108,000 in January, on inauguration day. Roy added that the crypto market pullback could have spooked investors, causing them to sell or at least hold off on adding to their Bitcoin ETFs.
But following a string of rough weeks for flows, the reverse happened. “We’ve seen the opposite: investors took advantage of the pullback to add,” he said.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X that net flows is the top metric to pay attention to when observing a fund’s success. “Impressive [the Bitcoin ETFs] were able to make it to a new high water mark so soon after the world was supposed to end,” he noted, referring to the continued flows into the products following Trump’s trade war.
ETFs are popular investment vehicles that trade on stock exchanges, allowing investors to buy and sell shares that track the price of anything from the S&P 500 and gold to Bitcoin and real estate firms.
After a decade of saying no to such products, the Securities and Exchange Commission last year approved the Bitcoin products, allowing 10 such spot ETFs to start trading on American stock exchanges. Ethereum funds followed last summer, and now issuers are angling to offer a much wider array of altcoin funds, pending SEC approval.
Bitcoin was recently trading for $104,260, CoinGecko data shows, after jumping by more than 25% over a 30-day period. The asset is just 4% off its January all-time high price.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
