BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust pulls in $665.2 million as ether ETFs bleed

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have traded in the US since January 2024, and BlackRock's IBIT has been the dominant vehicle almost from day one. The $524.8 million session on Oct. 21 follows a stretch where the group had bled roughly $229 million the previous week, and it echoes an Oct. 19 day when IBIT alone pulled in $665.2 million, its best showing since early October 2025, while rivals saw withdrawals.

Holders of IBIT are riding renewed institutional demand, while investors in Fidelity's and Grayscale's funds watched money leave even on strong days for the category. The two-day haul of $549.76 million reversed more than double the prior week's outflow, but Tuesday added just $23.16 million after Monday's $526.60 million, showing how much of the 'inflow' story depends on one fund's single-day decisions rather than broad-based buying.

A market this concentrated in one issuer's product raises a structural question: when IBIT absorbs the bulk of net demand and smaller funds bleed in parallel, the headline inflow figure overstates how broadly institutions are actually positioning. BlackRock's parallel filing for a buffer-style Bitcoin ETF, using options to cap losses in exchange for capped gains, is a separate bet that some investors want insurance against volatility rather than raw exposure, a trade-off worth watching rather than celebrating.

Whether this is a genuine 'catch-up trade,' as Presto Research's Min Jung suggested, or another short-lived reversal will show up in the next several daily flow reports from Farside Investors, particularly whether non-IBIT funds start attracting net inflows rather than redemptions. Separately, the SEC's review of BlackRock's Managed Protection ETF filing will determine whether a capped-loss Bitcoin product reaches the market at all.