In brief
- U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $817 million in net outflows Thursday, led by BlackRock’s IBIT with $317.8 million in outflows.
- Analysts point to Kevin Warsh’s potential Fed Chair nomination as a “hawkish” signal that is forcing a massive deleveraging of arbitrage capital.
- Bitcoin’s correlation with tech stocks returned as Microsoft’s disappointing 2026 guidance added to the global risk-off mood.
U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) notched a massive $817 million net outflow on Thursday, as the leading cryptocurrency’s price plummeted to a nine-month low.
The exodus was led by BlackRock’s IBIT, which saw $317.81 million in redemptions—a figure higher than the combined outflows of Fidelity’s FBTC ($168.05M) and Grayscale’s GBTC ($119.44M), according to SoSoValue data.
The aggressive selling followed a streak of negative catalysts that pushed Bitcoin out of its multi-week trading range, with the price bottoming at $81,315 in early trading—its lowest level since April 2025.
Bitcoin’s price crash
The price drop and ETF outflows were driven by a confluence of policy shifts and disappointing corporate data. This includes the looming announcement of a new Federal Reserve Chair—with speculation centering on Kevin Warsh—and a spillover effect from the equity markets, according to a previous Decrypt report.
Users on prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, have sharply repriced their outlook after Thursday’s collapse. Bitcoin’s chance of hitting $100,000, as a result, has dropped from 70% yesterday to 49% as of this writing.
“A streak of negative catalysts pushed Bitcoin to break its multi-week trading range to the downside,” Aurelie Barthere, Principal Research Analyst at Nansen, told Decrypt.
Barthere noted that Bitcoin’s correlation with U.S. equities has turned positive again. “Bitcoin sold off with equities following the market’s disappointment in Microsoft’s Q4 2025 financial results and its cautious guidance for 2026.”
The transition in Fed leadership is also fundamentally altering the “basis trade” that has sustained ETF volumes for months, Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, told Decrypt.
“From a capital structure perspective, Bitcoin spot ETFs function as a critical channel for leveraged capital to engage in spot-futures and basis arbitrage,” Sun explained. He said that the market is repricing the interest rate path as the probability of Kevin Warsh becoming the next Fed Chair rises.
“This segment of capital is exceptionally sensitive to shifts in liquidity,” Sun said. “As investors lower their overall risk profiles, they are rotating out of high-volatility assets and into traditional safe-haven and inflation-hedge assets like gold.
This shift has amplified ETF outflows and contributed to the sluggishness in Bitcoin’s recovery.”
Macro headwinds mount
Other macro headwinds have compounded the pressure.
While a potential U.S. government shutdown was averted late Thursday by a Senate funding deal, the market remains on edge over Trump’s executive order declaring a national emergency regarding oil tariffs and ongoing tensions in the South China Sea.
“Flow-wise, we have been observing a slow capitulation in ETFs, options, and miner activity for some time,” Barthere added.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $82,687, down nearly 6% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, as the market awaits the official White House announcement of the Fed Chair nominee later today.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/356458/bitcoin-etfs-shed-817m-as-btc-hits-nine-month-low
