US Bitcoin ETFs Bleed Record-Breaking $563 Million As BlackRock’s IBIT Posts First Day Of Outflows
The months-long torrent of money flowing into the formerly red-hot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has finally stalled.
Investors pulled more than half a billion dollars out of the products on May 1st, with BlackRock’s IBIT seeing its first outflow day for the first time since its Wall Street debut in January.
Spot BTC ETFs Experience Massive Outflows
The 11 U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have posted record-breaking outflows for the first time since their launch.
As the price of Bitcoin plummeted to its lowest level since February Wednesday, spot BTC ETFs shed an eye-watering $563.7 million. This figure considerably exceeded the previous record of $326 million in daily net outflows witnessed in mid-March.
The massive withdrawal from the BTC funds came as the Federal Reserve kept the benchmark interest rates unchanged. Fed Chair Jerome Powell asserted that the economy is too strong to cut rates while dismissing prospects of rate hikes.
With the Wednesday bleeding, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) saw outflows for the very first time as investors pulled out $36.9 million from the fund.
While Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has hemorrhaged the most money since January (over $17 billion in net outflows), Fidelity Investments’ Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) led outflows on Wednesday at $191 million. This might be disconcerting to bulls as BlackRock’s ETF and FBTC consistently drew in cash in the first quarter, offsetting the routine immense outflows from the rather pricey GBTC.
Grayscale’s GBTC accounted for the second-largest daily outflows of $167.4 million worth of Bitcoin. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and Franklin Templeton Bitcoin ETF also posted $98.1 million and $13.4 million in outflows, respectively.
Is The Bitcoin Bottom In?
Though spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded over $500 million in outflows Wednesday, Bitcoin’s price is still up roughly 34% year-to-date, in part because of the supply and demand dynamics brought about by the new investment products.
According to well-known crypto analyst Rekt Capital, Bitcoin’s recent correction is the longest and deepest pullback of the current cycle. The pundit posited in a May 2 analysis on YouTube:
“Whenever we’d get close to a 20% downside, that was typically a fantastic buying opportunity before price reversals towards the upside. So if we’re deeper than 20%, it is an even better opportunity than we had this cycle, because the deeper we go the closer we get to a bottoming in Bitcoin’s price action.”
Rekt Capital further noted that based on historical chart patterns, he doesn’t expect Bitcoin to slide further.
