The U.S. spot crypto ETF market has ended a three-week streak of net capital inflows and faced broad-based withdrawals. The epicenter of the sell-off was BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).
As the absolute market leader with total net assets of $46.18 billion, the fund took the brunt of worsening market sentiment. Investors who entered the asset near its peak are now seeing the fund’s one-year return at -45.62% and are locking in losses en masse.
ETF selling pressure pushes Bitcoin toward a $52,000 bottom formation
The fund’s scale has turned the actions of its clients into a market-wide trigger. According to data from SoSoValue, IBIT recorded a net outflow of $122.06 million during one of the latest trading sessions, accounting for almost half of the market-wide outflow of $265.37 million.
Synchronized selling was also recorded among its competitors: Fidelity’s FBTC lost $64.95 million, while Ark 21Shares’ ARKB saw $17.54 million in withdrawals. At the same time, Arkham’s on-chain analysts detected a fresh transfer of 1,948.07 $BTC, worth approximately $122.03 million, from BlackRock-linked wallets to the institutional platform Coinbase Prime.
Nevertheless, even after this outflow, the company still holds 737,118.26 $BTC on its balance sheet, representing 3.67% of the cryptocurrency’s total global supply.
The current outflow is taking place at a turning point for the market, with Bitcoin trading near $63,700 and remaining below a descending trendline on the weekly chart. Analysts note that pressure from ETF selling has pushed the asset into a bottom-formation phase that could last for up to three months.
As part of this process, a short-term price decline toward the realized price level near $52,000 remains possible.
While short-term investors are fleeing Bitcoin exposure, BlackRock itself is making a pragmatic move. With the largest base of disappointed clients, the company is rolling out a conservative Ethereum-based alternative through the tokenized BSTBL fund, or OnChain Shares of the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund, and the multichain BRSRV platform, or BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle.
These instruments invest in U.S. Treasury securities, cash, and repurchase agreements under the U.S. GENIUS Act. In this way, BlackRock is quickly capturing liquidity from investors fleeing volatile Bitcoin by offering them a stable, tokenized dollar product within its own ecosystem.
