On September 30, the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF recorded a net outflow of $148.7 million, ending the prior streak of nine consecutive trading days of net inflows. This round of inflows totaled about $3.08 billion and at one point pulled the year-to-date net inflows back into positive territory. Therefore, this reversal looks more like the first pause in a recovery process rather than a full trend reversal.

Structurally, the redemptions were concentrated in a small number of products. Fidelity’s FBTC saw an outflow of $125.6 million, Bitwise’s BITB outflow was $13.6 million, and BlackRock’s IBIT outflow was $9.5 million; the net flows of the other nine funds were zero. This distribution suggests that the selling pressure is not a synchronized pullback across the entire industry, but instead concentrated rebalancing through specific channels.

At the monthly level, conditions remain relatively strong. In September, net inflows for the full month were approximately USD 2.65 billion, the second-best month this year, only behind August’s USD 3.52 billion; net inflows for the year therefore returned to around USD 930 million. Cumulative inflows have been declining since the peak of about USD 62.8 billion on Oct 10, 2025, falling by roughly USD 12 billion to about USD 50.9 billion by July 13. Then new demand helped the cumulative scale recover to about USD 57.7 billion by the end of September, still about USD 5.0 billion short of the prior high.

Market conditions during the same period did not weaken in parallel. At the snapshot, BTC was quoted at USD 84,596, up 1.29% over 24 hours, up 0.06% over 4 hours, down 0.22% over 1 hour; the 24-hour trading range was 2.51%. Trading volume was about USD 1.43 billion, down 8.07% from the prior day. ETH was at USD 2,701.19, up 0.42% over 24 hours. Price and the direction of capital flows show a divergence, suggesting that net redemptions on a single day are not sufficient to drive spot pricing.

Next to watch is whether net outflows persist over the next several trading days. If they only pause briefly, cumulative inflows still have room to move back toward the prior high of USD 62.8 billion; if redemptions spread to more issuers, net inflows for the year could turn negative again. At the same time, pay attention to changes on the macro front: rising U.S. factory costs are affecting rate expectations, which in turn influences the ETF subscription/redemption cadence indirectly through risk appetite.

Risk warning: This article is for information and interpretation purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.