Spot Bitcoin ETF Outflow Streak Extends to Record 13 Days, $4.4B Cumulative

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds posted a 13th consecutive session of net outflows on Wednesday, stretching the longest withdrawal streak in the products' history and draining $4.4 billion from the cohort since May 15. The previous record stood at roughly seven consecutive outflow days — meaning the current run has nearly doubled it, Kraken Chief Strategy Officer Thomas Perfumo said on X.

The cohort has shed $4.33 billion since the streak began, equivalent to approximately 59,351 BTC, Galaxy Research reported via Wu Blockchain. Per-session data from Farside Investors show 12 of the sessions produced $4.07 billion in combined net redemptions, with BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) responsible for the largest share throughout.

Total net assets across the cohort fell from roughly $104 billion on May 15 to about $83 billion on Wednesday, a $21 billion decline that combines outflows with Bitcoin's 21% price drop over the same period, per SoSoValue. Bitcoin was trading near $63,926 on Thursday, off 4.1% on the day and 49% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,080, CoinGecko data show.

IBIT and the Concentration of Selling

IBIT accounted for roughly 75% of cumulative outflows across the streak, or about $3.3 billion of the $4.37 billion total, SoSoValue data show. Fidelity's FBTC and Ark 21Shares' ARKB logged smaller but consistent redemptions throughout, per the Farside daily flow table.

The concentration stands out because IBIT has been the dominant inflow vehicle since the spot funds launched in January 2024. Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that the outflows have sent aggregate year-to-date flows negative for the first time in 2026. IBIT itself remains in positive YTD territory.

"Some silver lining: $IBIT & a few others STILL positive YTD," Balchunas wrote on X.

Standard Chartered: Holdings More Resilient Than Feared

Standard Chartered Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick said Thursday the Bitcoin low is "almost in," with ETF holding stability as the key reason. In February, Kendrick had warned of "pain and final capitulation" and flagged ETF capitulation as a downside risk. Instead, holdings moved from roughly 682,000 BTC to a peak and back to about 674,000, broadly flat.

"This tells me that ETF holdings are more structurally strong than I had feared in February," Kendrick wrote in a client note Thursday. He maintained a $100,000 year-end Bitcoin target throughout the drawdown.

Cumulative net inflow to the ETF complex since the January 2024 launch remains around $54 billion, per Farside Investors, meaning the current streak has returned roughly 8% of total historical inflows to market.

The Streak in Context

For comparison, the spot-BTC-ETF products' strongest inflow run, roughly 19 consecutive sessions of net inflows across January and February 2024, brought in close to $6 billion as institutional interest first surged following the January 10, 2024 launch. The current outflow streak has lasted two-thirds as long in session count, at nearly twice the depth of any prior withdrawal run.

The Defiant reported Wednesday on the 12-day milestone, which also coincided with Bitcoin briefly trading below $66,000 and $1.86 billion in liquidations tied partly to Strategy's first Bitcoin sale in nearly four years.

Kendrick's bottom call comes with three stated conditions: a Strategy buyback confirming the 32-BTC sale was a one-off, stabilization in ETF flow data, and a supportive macro backdrop.

"There are a lot of ifs in the above, so accumulation is a better strategy than trying to outright declare the low has been printed," he wrote.

Thursday's session will either extend the streak to a 14th consecutive outflow day or bring the record run to a close.