U.S.-based Bitcoin ETFs attracted over $1.8 billion in inflows last week, extending a positive run that began on April 17, according to data from CoinGlass.
Thursday and Friday were particularly successful for Bitcoin ETFs, with the two days bringing in $423 million and $675 million, respectively.
Friday’s total was the seventh-highest of the year, while data from CoinShares shows that BTC ETF inflows outstripped their Ethereum counterparts by a factor of more than 10:1.
CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows report also records that BlackRock’s iShares ETF was last week’s big winner, with a total of $2.56 billion in net flows.
By contrast, several rivals suffered big weekly outflows, led by the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, which shrank by $458 million.
Strong flows for Bitcoin ETFs have come at a time when gold ETFs have been seeing outflows, as investors increasingly turn to Bitcoin as a hedge against U.S.-based assets.
Between April 28 and May 2, gold ETFs saw a total outflow of $1,941 billion.
This amounts to a $3.7 billion gap between flows for Bitcoin and gold ETFs, similar to the $4 billion gap witnessed in the previous week.
Flows “back in a big way”
Speaking on a panel at Token2049 Dubai last week, BlackRock’s Robert Mitchnick said that Bitcoin ETF flows “are back in a big way.”
Mitchnick added that institutions and advisory firms are accounting for an increasingly large share of total BTC ETF flows, whereas high-net-worth individuals were more predominant when ETFs first launched.
At the outset, it certainly was predominantly retail,” he said. “But then you also have the two other segments that are really important here, which is wealth advisory and institutional.”
BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets also suggested that the attraction of Bitcoin ETFs was tied to how BTC has been increasingly behaving like a safe haven, or a hedge that’s not correlated to the monetary risks arising from any particular country.
This would play into the notion that BTC has been benefitting from a flight away from U.S. assets, with treasury yields rising in recent weeks in response to the Trump administration’s stop-start crusade on tariffs.
And while Bitcoin has been profiting at the expense of U.S. government bonds (and recently gold), it has also been increasing its dominance of the cryptocurrency market.
The BTC dominance ratio currently sits at its highest level in four years, as major altcoins such as Ethereum, Solana and Dogecoin remain well below highs recorded in January.
The possible approval of ETFs for the likes of XRP and Dogecoin later in the year may help rectify this imbalance, yet the recent experience of Ethereum—which already has active ETFs in the US—arguably suggests otherwise.
As noted above, Bitcoin ETF inflows far outstripped those for Ethereum ETFs last week, with CoinGlass’ Digital Asset Fund Flows report showing that the latter attracted a relatively modest $149.2 million in net flows.
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