TL;DR
- U.S. Bitcoin and Ether ETFs reversed early-2026 inflows, with $1.13B leaving Bitcoin funds Tue through Thu and $258M exiting Ether funds since Wednesday.
- The shift echoes late-2025 caution: CoinShares said crypto ETPs lost $446M over Christmas, suggesting January flows were fragile.
- July 2025 marked peak accumulation $6B for Bitcoin and $5B for Ether; after an October $20B liquidation, investors rotated, while XRP and Solana ETFs stayed positive.
United States spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs began 2026 with a brief rebound, then flipped to heavy redemptions. SoSoValue data shows spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $1.13 billion in outflows from Tuesday through Thursday, offsetting $1.17 billion of inflows logged on Jan. 2 and Monday. Spot Ether ETFs mirrored the turn, with about $258 million exiting since Wednesday after modest inflows earlier in January. The reversal erased most early gains and signaled renewed caution across major funds for many allocators. For investors, the $1B-plus swing is the signal, showing appetite can fade quickly as sentiment softens.
ETF Momentum Cooled After Mid-2025 Surge
The pullback also extends a cautious tone from late 2025. CoinShares reported on Dec. 29 that crypto exchange-traded products shed $446 million over the Christmas period, reflecting fragile year-end sentiment after earlier volatility. Against that backdrop, January’s early buying looked vulnerable, and the latest redemptions suggest investors trimmed exposure as price action cooled. The pattern hints those early inflows were fragile, not sticky, as sentiment softened. That fragility matters when screens still look calm. Put differently, ETF momentum is behaving like a short-duration trade, with flows surging on rebound narratives and reversing when conviction fails.
SoSoValue’s monthly figures show where caution took root. Both spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs saw their strongest accumulation phase in July 2025. Bitcoin funds peaked at over $6 billion in monthly inflows, while Ether products reached over $5 billion. Since then, flows trended downward. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $750 million in outflows in August, then recovered in September and October before turning sharply negative again. November was their second-strongest outflow month of 2025, as $3.48 billion exited. In short, the mid-2025 surge now reads as a peak, not a new baseline for steady demand.
Ether ETFs followed a similar, smaller-scale path. Inflows accelerated through July and August before turning negative in November and December. The shift followed October’s sharp market correction, when a $20 billion liquidation event triggered widespread deleveraging. Analysts described that episode as controlled deleveraging rather than a systemic cascade, yet flow data suggests investors reassessed exposure in the weeks that followed. Meanwhile, spot ETFs tracking altcoins like XRP and Solana posted smaller but steadier inflows and avoided outflow months since late 2025, implying rotation is replacing full exits for some allocators.
