This week’s flows into the combined U.S. spot Bitcoin 
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exchange-traded funds turned positive on Wednesday, eclipsing the net outflows witnessed on Monday.
Wednesday’s $113.5 million worth of net inflows, following the $40.3 million added on Tuesday, were enough to surpass the $87.5 million in net outflows registered on Monday, according to CoinGlass data.
Fidelity’s FBTC spot Bitcoin ETF led yesterday’s inflows, adding $116.7 million, with BlackRock’s usually dominant IBIT fund second, bringing in $42 million. Bitwise’s BITB product came third on Wednesday with inflows of $23 million, with the remaining ETFs adding less than $4 million each. Total net inflows currently stand at $12.2 billion.
Fidelity’s FBTC is now approaching 150,000 BTC ($10 billion) under management. BlackRock’s IBIT leads among the newborn spot Bitcoin ETFs with over 256,000 BTC ($17 billion).
Meanwhile, Grayscale’s converted GBTC fund has fallen 47% from around 619,000 BTC to 328,000 BTC ($22 billion), per CoinGlass. GBTC’s current 1.5% fee compares to 0.25% for FBTC and IBIT.
“Equity mutual funds have seen $3.5 trillion of outflows in the past 10 years yet their assets have jumped by $6 trillion to reach $14 trillion because stocks are up 280% in that time,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said. “This is probably the best example of the ‘bull market subsidy’ there is and why GBTC likely is not motivated to lower its fee despite outflows/complaints.”
Outflows for Grayscale’s GBTC fund slow
Outflows of $302.6 million for GBTC on Monday significantly contributed to the total net outflow registered by the spot Bitcoin ETFs combined that day. “Honestly higher than I expected,” fellow Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart wrote at the time. “I thought this would have slowed down by now.”
However, markets were closed on Good Friday, which could have impacted Monday’s figure, and GBTC’s outflows subsequently slowed to $81.9 million on Tuesday and then $75.1 million yesterday.
Earlier this month, a Coinbase report suggested that Genesis Global Holdco LLC’s potential sale of 35.9 million GBTC shares, valued at around $2 billion, might have caused recent GBTC selling pressure.
The outflows from Grayscale’s higher-fee GBTC fund peaked at $642.5 million on March 18, consistently averaging around $300 million per day until Tuesday’s drop below $100 million. Total outflows for GBTC stand at $15.2 billion.
“Gonna make a call. I *think* we are likely through the Gemini/Genesis selling due to the Genesis bankruptcy for GBTC shares,” Seyffart said yesterday.
Spot Bitcoin ETF daily flows and volume continue to decline
Although outflows from Grayscale’s GBTC appear to be slowing, so are the overall flows for the spot Bitcoin ETFs since peaking at a net daily inflow of $1.05 billion on March 12, as bitcoin approached its latest all-time high of $73,836, according to The Block’s data dashboard.
March was also a banner month for the spot Bitcoin ETFs by trading volume, nearly tripling February’s total to top $111 billion. However, after reaching a record $9.9 billion on March 5, as bitcoin first broke past its prior cycle peak of around $69,000, daily volume has also been in decline, generating $2.3 billion in trading on Wednesday.
While daily trading volumes remain above the average levels witnessed in January and February, the decline is also demonstrated by the cumulative volume chart for the spot Bitcoin ETFs as the rate of acceleration slows. Total volume now stands at $190 billion.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $66,234, according to The Block’s price page. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap traded flat over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin’s price has dropped 6% over the past week but remains 57% up year-to-date.
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