Bitcoin ETF Flows: IBIT ETF Rebounds 5% as $173M Leaves Crypto Funds

Bitcoin ETF Flows: IBIT Bounces While the Crypto Fund Complex Bleeds Cash

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) price, IBIT ETF move and what the tape is really saying

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) trades around $67,800–$68,000, after a 24-hour range that ran from roughly $67,650 up toward $69,200. Spot volumes across major BTC venues sit in the high-$30 billion area, which is not panic territory but clearly below the peak “FOMO” phases you saw earlier in the cycle. Against that backdrop, IBIT • NASDAQ – iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF closed at $38.97, up 5.18% on the day, and ticked higher after hours to $39.14 (+0.44%). That bounce came off a prior close of $37.05, with intraday trading between $37.89 and $39.38. IBIT is sitting near the lower end of its $35.30–$71.82 year range, with a reported fund market cap around $166.25 billion and average daily volume of 75.89 million shares. Price action is clear: Bitcoin is well below recent highs, IBIT is pinned in the bottom half of its 12-month range, but buyers are still prepared to step in aggressively after sharp drawdowns.

Four straight weeks of crypto fund outflows and what that means for Bitcoin ETFs

Digital asset products have now posted four consecutive weeks of net outflows, with the latest week showing $173 million pulled out after $187 million left the prior week. Over the last month, redemptions add up to roughly $3.8 billion, and assets under management for the entire crypto fund universe slipped to about $133 billion, the lowest reading since April 2025. Bitcoin products carry most of that load: BTC-linked ETPs saw about $133.3 million in weekly outflows, taking their AUM down toward $106 billion. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs were hit even harder on a regional basis, with about $360 million in net redemptions during the week. That is not a marginal wobble; it is a clear unwind after the initial rush into spot products. The flows show that part of the investor base is not just nervous about price; they are actively shrinking exposure at the fund level.

Regional split: U.S. sells Bitcoin exposure while Europe quietly accumulates

Flows are not monolithic. While U.S. domiciled products saw around $403 million in outflows over the week, non-U.S. vehicles actually attracted about $230 million in combined inflows. Germany led that charge with roughly $115 million, Canada added about $46 million, and Switzerland chipped in $37 million. The message is straightforward: U.S. investors are taking chips off the table in both Bitcoin ETFs and broader crypto funds, while European and Canadian allocators are leaning against that weakness and adding exposure into lower prices. This divergence matters for IBIT because it trades in the U.S. market. Even if global demand for BTC-USD stabilizes, heavy U.S. selling can still pressure IBIT’s flows and secondary market price until that regional risk-off phase exhausts itself.

Rotation inside the crypto ETF complex: XRP and Solana soak up risk capital

While Bitcoin and Ethereum products leaked money, altcoin vehicles quietly absorbed some of that risk. XRP ETPs pulled in about $33.4 million in the week, and Solana products attracted roughly $31 million, making them the stand-out gainers in an otherwise negative flow tape. That rotation is also visible at the single-asset level: one XRP-focused report highlighted banks and trading firms accumulating XRP ETF exposure, with assets in those funds having peaked near $1.6 billion in mid-January 2026 before cooling to just over $1 billion. At the same time, Solana’s on-chain metrics show real usage: DEX volume recently dropped from $95.6 billion to $74.3 billion week-over-week (a >20% slide), while support levels in SOL-USD cluster around $84 with downside targets flagged near $79 and deeper support around $59. The point is simple: institutional capital is not abandoning digital assets entirely. It is rotating away from Bitcoin ETFs at the margin into XRP, Solana, and other alt strategies, using the ETF wrapper as a sector trade rather than a binary “in or out of crypto” decision.

IBIT vs HODL: fee drag, scale and how to interpret the structure for Bitcoin exposure

The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) and the VanEck Bitcoin ETF (HODL) both offer spot Bitcoin (BTC-USD) exposure, but they sit at very different points on the spectrum:

• IBIT’s expense ratio is 0.25%, versus 0.20% for HODL

• One-year total return numbers cluster around -29.24% for IBIT and -29.11% for HODL as of Feb 11, 2026

• IBIT controls about $64.8 billion in AUM in the snapshot you provided, versus roughly $1.32 billion for HODL

Earlier data in the same comparison showed IBIT around $56.6 billion in AUM, which implies it has absorbed several additional billions as the spot ETF market matured. That scale shows up clearly in trading metrics: IBIT’s share turnover is deep enough for institutions to move size without blowing out spreads, while HODL’s much smaller footprint makes it more attractive for fee-sensitive buy-and-hold investors than for large tactical flows. Risk metrics underline the same point. Over the last two years, IBIT’s max drawdown sat around -41.69%, while HODL’s reported figure was a far steeper -93.68%. Both hold the same underlying asset, but the path of returns, secondary-market liquidity, and execution costs look different. For anyone trading around BTC-USD with size, IBIT’s depth matters more than the five basis-point fee gap; for smaller accounts willing to sit through volatility, HODL’s cheaper structure compounds slowly in their favor.

Short-term flow picture: four weeks of redemptions against early signs of stabilization

CoinShares data show the $173 million weekly outflow and the $3.8 billion four-week bleed, but other flow trackers already flag a change in tone. One blockchain-focused report noted that spot Bitcoin ETF inflows picked up again as volatility cooled, with Bitcoin holding roughly in the $67,000–$69,000 band instead of cascading lower. That combination – price stabilizing near the high-$60,000s, ETFs shifting from hard outflows into mixed, sometimes positive, sessions – is exactly what you expect in a consolidation phase after a strong leg lower. IBIT’s +5.18% daily jump to $38.97 with after-hours continuation to $39.14 tells you that dip-buyers are still waiting. They are not willing to chase BTC-USD above $70,000 in the current macro, but they are prepared to re-enter IBIT in size when the tape retests the low end of its $35.30–$71.82 12-month range.

Macro and structure: why Bitcoin ETF flows are fragile but not broken

The four-week outflow streak must be read together with the structural backdrop:

• Crypto fund AUM at $133 billion is the lowest since April 2025, but it still represents a deep institutional pool.

• Bitcoin products alone manage roughly $106 billion in AUM even after the $133.3 million weekly outflow.

• U.S. spot ETFs lost about $360 million over the week, while Europe and Canada added about $230 million, with Germany ($115M), Canada ($46M), Switzerland ($37M) leading those inflows.

This is not a “collapse of the ETF story”; it is a repricing phase where U.S. investors reduce risk after a strong run, non-U.S. allocators buy that supply, and altcoin ETFs absorb part of the risk budget. As volatility in BTC-USD compresses, the ETF wrapper becomes attractive again for institutions that cannot touch direct coins or offshore venues. That is why IBIT can trade higher on a given day even while aggregate weekly data still show net redemptions – secondary-market demand and primary-market creations/redemptions are related but not identical.

Positioning call: Bitcoin ETF flows, IBIT and whether this is a buy, sell or hold

Taking all the numbers together – IBIT at $38.97 after a 5.18% bounce, BTC-USD stuck around $68,000, four weeks of cumulative ETF outflows near $3.8 billion, Bitcoin fund AUM at $106 billion, crypto-wide AUM at $133 billion, U.S. outflows of $403 million versus $230 million ex-U.S. inflows, XRP and Solana ETP inflows of $33.4 million and $31 million – the picture is not one of structural collapse. It is a pause where weaker hands and short-term trend followers are exiting spot Bitcoin ETFs, while long-horizon allocators outside the U.S. and altcoin specialists are selectively adding risk.

On that basis:

• For IBIT, the call is BUY with high-volatility risk at these levels. The ETF is near the lower band of its 12-month range, it offers dominant liquidity versus peers, and it still tracks a BTC-USD market that retains deep structural demand. The 0.25% fee is more than offset by execution quality and depth for professional users.

• For Bitcoin ETF flows as a whole, the stance is cautiously bullish, not euphoric. Further outflows are possible if BTC-USD loses the mid-$60,000 area, but the combination of non-U.S. inflows, stabilizing price, and renewed spot ETF buying on quieter days argues against a full-blown structural bear phase in the ETF channel.

The key risk is obvious and numeric: if weekly outflows accelerate well beyond the current $173 million pace and AUM drops decisively below $100 billion for Bitcoin products, that would signal that the institutionally driven ETF bid has broken. Right now, the data you provided do not show that break; they show a sharp but controlled de-risking that leaves IBIT and the broader Bitcoin (BTC-USD) ETF complex still viable for buyers willing to accept drawdowns and trade around a choppy, range-bound market.

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