Bitcoin ETF Outflows Hit $175M as IBIT ETF Loses $91M With BTC-USD Stuck Around $88K

Bitcoin ETF Flows Turn Negative As BTC-USD Hovers Around $88,000

Daily Outflows Hit $175M As BlackRock’s IBIT Leads The Selling

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted about $175 million in net outflows on December 24, a clear break from the earlier pattern of steady or positive flows. The largest single hit came from BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which alone saw roughly $91.37 million in redemptions, the biggest one-day outflow in the Bitcoin ETF complex. This comes while Bitcoin (BTC-USD) trades near $88,000, well below the October peak after roughly a 30% drawdown, and IBIT itself trades around $49.46 per share versus a 52-week range of $42.98–$71.82 and a quoted market cap near $168.95 billion. The message is straightforward: the institutional bid that powered much of 2025 is not gone, but it is clearly de-risking and taking profit into year-end, rather than blindly averaging down at current BTC-USD levels.

IBIT’s Massive Inflows Show Structural Adoption Despite Weekly Redemptions

Zooming out, IBIT still looks like a structural allocation vehicle rather than a failed trade. Since launch, the product has accumulated about $62.5 billion in net inflows, and in 2025 alone brought in around $25.4 billion despite roughly -9.6% performance for the year. That was enough to place IBIT among the top 10 U.S. ETFs by annual net inflows, outdrawing even a large gold ETF that delivered +64% returns over the same period. Only after Bitcoin rolled over from its October high and fell about 30% did the behavior flip: into late December, IBIT registered five consecutive weeks of outflows totaling about $2.7 billion, contributing to roughly $629 million of net outflows across Bitcoin ETFs while Ethereum products lost another $512 million. This is classic position trimming and risk management, not panic liquidation, and it leaves a very large base of long-term capital still parked in IBIT.

Altcoin ETFs: XRP And Solana Absorb Capital As Flows Rotate Away From BTC-USD

The same window that shows Bitcoin ETF outflows also shows altcoin ETF inflows, confirming that institutions are rotating inside crypto rather than exiting the asset class completely. Newly launched XRP spot ETFs have posted 28 consecutive trading days of net inflows since their mid-November debut, with no outflow days and cumulative allocations around $1.14 billion. Solana (SOL-USD) ETFs have attracted roughly $750 million in net inflows. On December 24, while Bitcoin ETFs lost $175 million, XRP ETFs added about $11.93 million and Solana ETFs added around $1.48 million. Yet prices underscore the other side of the ledger: SOL-USD is down roughly 53% from its October high, and XRP remains about 50% below its July peak, which tells you ETF demand is strong but not strong enough to completely offset profit-taking and whale distribution into the last weeks of 2025. The pattern is clear: institutions are paring Bitcoin, funding altcoin ETF “stories,” and waiting for better entry points in BTC-USD.

US ETF Market’s $1.4 Trillion Inflows Put Bitcoin Funds In Perspective

Across the broader ETF landscape, 2025 produced a record “triple crown”: roughly $1.4 trillion in net inflows, over 1,100 new ETF launches, and about $57.9 trillion in trading volume. Crypto ETFs, even with all the attention, still represent a small but visible slice of that machine. The fact that a single product like IBIT can pull in $25.4 billion in a year where its underlying asset is negative only underlines how firmly Bitcoin has entered mainstream allocation menus, even if it remains peripheral compared with giant equity and bond products. There is a historical warning here: the last time the ETF industry had a similarly “perfect” year—2021—the S&P 500 dropped about 19% in 2022 as the Fed tightened and liquidity reset. When ETF conditions look this clean, risk assets are often late in the cycle, not early, and Bitcoin is trading inside that macro backdrop whether crypto traders like it or not.

On-Chain And Flow Data Show Demand Fatigue Rather Than Forced Capitulation

Flow and on-chain indicators confirm that what is happening in BTC-USD is demand fatigue, not a crash driven by forced sellers. The 30-day simple moving average of net flows into U.S. spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs turned decisively negative in early November and has stayed there, aligning with the price fading from its post-October highs. Analytics platforms also show that the Coinbase premium, which stayed positive during the mid-year rally, has flipped into a persistently negative regime, meaning U.S. spot buyers are no longer paying up to accumulate Bitcoin. Instead of heavy liquidation spikes, the pattern is muted participation, smaller bids, and incremental trimming, consistent with funds moving from an expansion phase to an adjustment phase. Price is drifting lower not because the market is collapsing, but because new demand at $85,000–$90,000 simply isn’t large enough to absorb supply from earlier entrants and ETF profit-takers.

Covered-Call Structures Like BITK Monetize IBIT Exposure Instead Of Exiting BTC-USD

Another important signal is the appearance of products that wrap IBIT exposure with options overlays, rather than abandon Bitcoin entirely. The Tuttle Capital IBIT 0DTE Covered Call ETF (BITK.US) is one example: it goes ex-dividend on December 26, 2025, paying $0.08 per share on December 29 to holders of record. The strategy is straightforward: hold IBIT units and systematically sell zero-day (0DTE) call options against them, converting volatility into recurring cash yield. This shows that a meaningful base of investors still wants Bitcoin exposure via IBIT but is willing to cap short-term upside in exchange for steady premium income, which naturally reduces outright selling but also dampens the velocity of any sharp rally. Structurally, this is similar to long-term shareholders writing covered calls on stock they refuse to sell: conviction in the asset, but realism about range-bound behavior in the near term.

Short-Term View: Negative ETF Flows And Weak US Spot Demand Cap BTC-USD Rallies

In the short term, the takeaway is direct and not favorable to a fast rebound. The combination of multiple weeks of net outflows, the -$175M daily shock, a negative 30-day flow average, and a soft Coinbase premium means that Bitcoin ETFs are no longer a net absorber of supply. Every attempt by BTC-USD to bounce strongly from the $80,000–$90,000 zone runs into three overlapping headwinds: ETF redemptions from earlier buyers who want to lock in gains, systematic overwriting strategies that sell upside through products like BITK, and internal rotation into XRP and Solana ETFs where institutions are willing to take more idiosyncratic risk. Without a sustained turn back to positive flows and a clear resurgence in U.S. spot demand, rallies in BTC-USD are more likely to be sold into and faded rather than extended into a new leg of the bull market.

Medium- To Long-Term View: Bitcoin And IBIT Remain Core Institutional Positions

The medium- and long-term picture for Bitcoin and IBIT looks very different from the current tactical de-risking. Even after the last weeks of outflows, IBIT has still attracted around $62.5 billion in net inflows since inception and about $25.4 billion this year alone, while delivering negative performance. That is exactly what structural adoption looks like: allocators treating Bitcoin as a long-duration macro asset alongside gold, Treasuries, and mega-cap tech, not as a short-term punt. Crypto ETFs taken together are still a small share of the $1.4 trillion of U.S. ETF inflows; any modest reweighting from bonds or equities into Bitcoin when macro conditions shift can send another wave of capital into BTC-USD quickly. The presence of yield-enhanced structures like BITK on top of IBIT is further proof that institutions are building layers of product around a Bitcoin core, not walking away from it.

Final View On BTC-USD And IBIT: Long-Term Buy On Weakness With Flow Cycles Built In

Pulling the data together, the message for Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and IBIT is clear. Short term, the negative ETF flow regime, muted U.S. spot appetite, and rotation into XRP and Solana ETFs argue against expecting an immediate, clean breakout to new highs. Medium and long term, the reality that IBIT has become a top-six ETF by annual inflows in a record $1.4 trillion ETF year, and that it still holds tens of billions in sticky capital, points to Bitcoin remaining a core institutional asset that will experience powerful inflow waves again when macro risk appetite turns. The rational stance, based strictly on flows and positioning, is bullish with patience: treat BTC-USD as a buy-on-weakness asset over a full cycle, recognizing that ETF flows are now a primary driver of both the upside accelerations and the consolidation phases you are seeing into the close of 2025.

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