Bitcoin ETFs Lose $635.6 Million and Keep a Green Tape

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $635.6 million in net outflows on October 22, the largest daily withdrawal since June 25. The print flipped three sessions of buying and landed as bitcoin slipped toward $81,500 with a 2.6% drop in the Nasdaq Composite.

Four sessions through October 22 still show $439.1 million of net inflows. On Derive, the implied chance bitcoin finishes above $100,000 by Christmas rose from 9.7% to 12%, while the chance of a drop below $70,000 fell from 15.6% to 11%.

The Same Two Funds Bought Wednesday and Sold Thursday

Farside Investors’ daily fund-by-fund flow table is the tape. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) supplied most of Wednesday’s $524.8 million inflow, then supplied most of Thursday’s redemptions. IBIT swung from $235 million in to $254.1 million out. FBTC swung from $212.7 million in to $217.5 million out.

Together those two products accounted for 74% of Thursday’s net outflow, or $471.6 million. ARK 21Shares’ ARKB lost $109.4 million, Grayscale’s GBTC lost $29.5 million, and Bitwise’s BITB lost $27.4 million. Morgan Stanley’s MSBT was the only listed fund that took in cash, at $2.3 million. The rest of the complex printed zeros.

OCTOBER 21 VERSUS OCTOBER 22

The one-day swing from Wednesday’s inflow to Thursday’s outflow is $1.16 billion. That is a mirror print, not a new cast of sellers. On October 21, seven funds took in cash and none posted a net outflow. On October 22, five funds posted outflows and only MSBT was green.

𝗕𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗧𝗙 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄 (𝗨𝗦$ 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻) – 2026-10-22

TOTAL NET FLOW: -635.6

IBIT: -254.1
FBTC: -217.5
BITB: -27.4
ARKB: -109.4
BTCO: 0
EZBC: 0
BRRR: 0
HODL: 0
BTCW: 0
MSBT: 2.3
GBTC: -29.5
BTC: 0 pic.twitter.com/ZCTIufNqy1

— Farside Investors (@FarsideUK) October 23, 2026

Strip BlackRock out of the four sessions and the rest of the complex is net negative by $236.9 million. Monday’s $526.7 million headline was an IBIT day: the fund added $665.2 million while FBTC and GBTC were already in the red. Wednesday looked broader, with $289.8 million arriving outside IBIT. Thursday erased that breadth in a single session. The wrappers are chasing the tape rather than setting it.

Thursday’s $635.6 Million Against $104.71 Billion

SoSoValue put U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs at $104.71 billion in net assets as of October 22, equal to 6.41% of bitcoin’s market cap. Thursday’s $635.6 million was 0.61% of that pile. Farside’s running total of net inflows since January 2024 is $57.39 billion. A 0.61% daily leak does not unwind that stock of capital.

BlackRock reported October 21 net assets of $68.47 billion in IBIT, with a 0.25% sponsor fee, before Thursday’s redemptions and the price drop. SoSoValue had IBIT at $65.95 billion on October 22, about 63% of the complex. The $254.1 million that left IBIT was 0.39% of that October 22 figure, or about 3,120 bitcoin.

HOW BIG $635.6 MILLION IS

• Share of assets: $635.6 million was 0.61% of the $104.71 billion held across U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs on October 22.
• IBIT’s slice: $254.1 million was 0.39% of IBIT’s $65.95 billion and about 3,120 bitcoin.
• Four-session net: Monday through Thursday still show $439.1 million of net inflows, after $1.07 billion came in across the first three sessions.
• Trading weight: IBIT handled $2.00 billion of the $2.56 billion traded in the bitcoin ETF complex on October 22, or 78% of the day’s volume.

Fidelity’s fund did more of the selling relative to its size. FBTC held $14.33 billion, about 14% of ETF assets, and accounted for 34% of Thursday’s net outflow, or about 2,670 bitcoin. IBIT held 63% of the assets and accounted for 40% of the outflow. The flagship was not the heaviest seller on a share-of-assets basis. Fidelity was.

Morgan Stanley’s Fund Added $2.3 Million on a Red Day

MSBT, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, launched on April 8, 2026, as the first U.S. bank-issued spot bitcoin ETF. It charges 0.14%, 11 basis points under IBIT. Farside’s fee row lists GBTC at 1.50%, which is the old trust’s leftover cost. MSBT has spent its short life on the other side of that trade: a cheap share class sold through a bank’s own advisors, taking in cash on days the larger products leak.

Thursday fit the pattern. While IBIT, FBTC, ARKB, GBTC, and BITB all posted outflows, MSBT added $2.3 million. Farside’s cumulative total for the fund is $802 million. The only net-outflow session on that tape is $5.3 million, Farside’s recorded minimum for MSBT, on May 29.

MSBT’S FLOW RECORD SINCE APRIL

• Launch day: The fund began trading on April 8, 2026, with a 0.14% fee, and drew about $30.6 million of net inflows and $34 million of volume on day one.
• First month: It absorbed about $194 million in its first month without a single day of net redemptions.
• Only red day: Farside’s MSBT minimum is $5.3 million of outflows, the May 29 session that remains its only net-outflow day.
• Thursday: MSBT added $2.3 million on October 22, the lone inflow in a $635.6 million outflow session.

The product is still small next to IBIT. It is also the one share class that has not behaved like a high-beta trading vehicle. Bank-channel buyers in a 0.14% wrapper are not the same cohort as the authorized-participant flow that rips through IBIT and FBTC on a Nasdaq down day. Thursday made that split visible in a single print.

June’s Outflow Month Dwarfs a Single Red Day

“Largest since June” is true and easy to over-read. The June 2026 monthly total was $4.5 billion of net outflows across 21 trading days, with 3 inflow sessions and 18 outflow sessions. The biggest single day was June 25, at $696.3 million, which is $60.7 million larger than Thursday. IBIT alone lost $3.6 billion that month. MSBT took in $101.5 million, the only major product that finished June in the green.

Bitcoin closed June below $60,000. That month was a grind, not a one-day headline. Farside’s recorded minimum for any single session is $1.11 billion, so Thursday is not the worst day on the books. It is the worst day since that June 25 print, arriving after bitcoin had already climbed back into the low $80,000s and after three sessions that had just put $1.07 billion back into the products.

Lorris Beziers is a senior DeFi analyst at Tesseract Group. Before Thursday’s reversal he had pointed to the earlier inflows as a sign of continued ETF demand even with the broader market soft. The next test, he said, was whether inflows continued while bitcoin held the $80,000 to $81,000 range. “If inflows fade and that floor breaks, the demand picture has weakened,” Beziers said. Inflows faded on October 22. The floor, as of Friday, October 23, had not broken.

Why Bitcoin ETFs Moved With the Nasdaq

Bitcoin sold off with U.S. technology stocks on October 22 because the same risk budget funds both. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6%, its worst session since June, and the S&P 500 lost 1.2%, its worst day since July. Jeff Anderson, head of U.S. at STS Digital, said bitcoin remains closely tied to technology stocks, with worries over AI valuations and debt weighing on the market. Spot ETF redemptions were the pipe that carried that equity risk-off into bitcoin.

Bitcoin traded near $81,500 on Friday, October 23, down 3.4% over the prior day. CoinGlass recorded $440 million of leveraged crypto liquidations over 24 hours, including $397 million of longs. SoSoValue’s market note said the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield fell below 5% for the first time since late September, dropping 12 basis points, a flight into sovereign debt on the same tape that pushed funds out of bitcoin wrappers.

THURSDAY’S RISK-OFF PRINTS

• Nasdaq Composite: Closed down 2.6% on October 22, the worst session since June.
• S&P 500: Closed down 1.2%, the worst daily performance since July.
• Bitcoin: Traded near $81,500 on October 23, down 3.4% over the prior day.
• Liquidations: CoinGlass showed $440 million of leveraged crypto positions closed in 24 hours, $397 million of them longs.

Anderson did not treat the move as a regime shift. “We do not read a lot into this move, with $80K/$86K being the recent channel as we watch for a breakout of those levels,” he said. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs also flipped, with $110.6 million leaving on October 22 after $14.9 million had come in the day before. Solana and Hyperliquid ETFs posted net outflows as well. XRP funds added $3.6 million, the outlier on an otherwise risk-off day for crypto wrappers.

Options Markets Still Bid for $100,000 by Christmas

Nick Forster is founder and CEO of Derive and a former Susquehanna options trader. While the ETF tape printed its largest outflow since June, the options surface he tracks moved the other way. The implied probability of bitcoin exceeding $100,000 by Christmas rose from 9.7% to 12%. The implied probability of a drop below $70,000 fell from 15.6% to 11%.

What they show is that traders have increased their exposure to year-end upside while reducing their spending on crash protection

Nick Forster, founder and CEO, Derive

That is the split Thursday leaves on the page. Authorized-participant flow through IBIT and FBTC dumped $471.6 million in a session that tracked a Nasdaq rout. The four-day ETF total is still +$439.1 million, and it is an IBIT total; without BlackRock the other funds lost $236.9 million. MSBT, the bank wrapper at 0.14%, added $2.3 million and has had one outflow day since April. Call buyers paid up for Christmas upside and spent less on crash puts.

Beziers’ test is only half complete. Inflows faded. Bitcoin was still holding the $80,000 to $81,000 band on October 23, inside Anderson’s $80,000 to $86,000 channel. A second outflow session that also takes the floor would answer him. One $635.6 million day, 0.61% of ETF assets, has not.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and market analysis for information only. It is not investment advice, a solicitation to buy or sell bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana, Hyperliquid tokens, or any exchange-traded product, and it is not a recommendation of any fund named above. Readers should consult a licensed financial advisor or other qualified investment professional before making decisions about crypto or ETF holdings. Flow figures, assets, options probabilities, and prices reflect Farside Investors, SoSoValue, iShares, CoinGlass, and Derive data tied to October 22 and October 23, 2026, and later sessions can change those numbers.