Uptober? More Like Exit-tober: Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $910M in Two Weeks 📉

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $82.4 million on Friday, capping a week in which outflows outweighed inflows on three of five trading days, according to Decrypt's ETF tracker. The funds lost a net $228.6 million for the week, per SoSoValue, following a $681.1 million drain the week prior. Over the two weeks, roughly $910 million has exited the products. A $175.7 million inflow on Tuesday was wiped out a day later by $261.4 million in redemptions, the week's worst session. Thursday brought a modest $5.1 million inflow before selling resumed Friday.

Wednesday's selling coincided with a hotter-than-expected inflation print. The consumer price index showed prices up 3.7% year over year in September, above the 3.6% forecast, and Thursday's producer price reading revived bets on another Federal Reserve interest rate hike. Bitcoin briefly slipped below $80,000 on Thursday, and nearly $950 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, about 90% of them bullish longs, according to CoinGlass. The drop also pushed Bitcoin below the average ETF holder's estimated cost basis near $82,300, Nexo analyst Iliya Kalchev told Decrypt.

The back-to-back red weeks have dragged October deep into negative territory. After opening the month with roughly $293 million in inflows, the funds are now down about $615 million for October, based on Decrypt's tracker. The slide began in earnest on Oct. 7, when a $484.9 million exit marked the funds' worst day since June. Spot Ethereum and Solana ETFs have also posted outflows this month.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs are exchange-traded funds that hold actual Bitcoin and trade on stock exchanges like ordinary shares, giving investors exposure through a regular brokerage account without buying or storing the asset themselves. Since launching in January 2024, they have drawn $57.3 billion in cumulative net inflows, according to Decrypt's tracker, making them a fixture of Wall Street's crypto exposure. Total net assets stand at $104.29 billion, according to SoSoValue, while Decrypt's tracker puts the figure at $100.2 billion. $BTC closed Friday near $81,590, down from about $82,337 a week earlier.