Strong capital outflows from Bitcoin ETFs despite Trump’s tariff pause

In recent days, there have been significant capital outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Despite this, however, it is not a record-breaking outflow, neither in terms of volume nor duration.

Obviously, behind this flight from Bitcoin ETFs is the fear of the markets due to Trump’s trade war.

The outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs: what do they mean?

Starting from last Thursday, April 3, 2025, there have been five consecutive sessions of outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, with the peak recorded the day before yesterday. Even yesterday, despite the rebound, the flows were negative.

Last Thursday, the price of BTC dropped from $87,000 to $82,000 due to the start of the escalation in the ongoing trade war between the USA and China. While the day before there was still a positive inflow of as much as 218 million dollars, Thursday saw an outflow of nearly 10 million.

It should be remembered that ETFs are traded on the US exchanges only while they are open, which means for a decidedly limited number of hours per day. Furthermore, it should be added that in the previous days there had been four days of inflows, followed by three of outflows, so in reality the outflow trend started with the session on March 28, and was interrupted only briefly during the session on April 2, before Trump announced the so-called “reciprocal” tariffs after the exchanges closed.

In the last five sessions, the outflows have been overall higher than 700 million dollars, with a peak of -326 million dollars on Tuesday. Yesterday, the outflows were limited to 127 million.

Note that the maximum daily outflow ever recorded so far was 1.1 billion, even higher than the cumulative outflows in the last five sessions. Even adding the data from the previous days, from March 28 until yesterday, in a total of nine sessions, the total outflows barely exceed 800 million dollars, thus far from any record.

The price of Bitcoin

Between March 28 and April 1, while there were a total of 311 million dollars of outflows from Bitcoin ETFs over three sessions, the price of BTC fell from $87,000 to $81,000, which is a decline that is neither unusual nor remarkable, as it is Bitcoin.

On April 2, while there were net inflows on Bitcoin ETFs, the price of BTC first rose above $87,000, then with the announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs by Trump, when the markets were already closed, there was a sudden drop below $82,000. But even in this case, it is not an unusual dynamic for BTC.

In the following days, and particularly on Monday, the price of BTC fell below $75,000 for a brief moment, and it practically stayed there until yesterday. This decline was accompanied by overall outflows slightly above $700 million from the ETFs, so even in this case, it was not really anything particularly significant or unusual.

This is particularly important because for borse tradizionali it was a real collapse, although followed yesterday by a huge rebound.

Perhaps the only surprising thing is that even yesterday, despite the rebound, the stock market session ultimately still closed with an outflow of 127 million dollars from Bitcoin ETFs.

The Bitcoin (BTC) spot ETFs

It is necessary, however, to add an overall picture to understand how insignificant these data actually are.

The ETF su BTC spot were launched just over a year ago, in January 2024.

Since then, they have collectively raised more than 35.6 billion dollars, against which the 800 million outflows from March 28 to today pale in comparison.

Furthermore, in the first weeks of presence on the markets, the Grayscale ETF was liquidating enormous quantities of BTC accumulated in excess in previous years, when it was not yet an ETF but only a fund that could not freely liquidate the collateral.

Just consider that, by examining the overall performance of individual ETFs, the one from Grayscale (GBTC, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust) from January 2024 to today has recorded overall outflows of even more than 22.7 billion dollars, while the one from BlackRock (IBIT, iShares Bitcoin Trust) has recorded overall inflows of 39.5 billion, ending up absorbing all the outflows of GBTC, and much more.

The second ETF on BTC spot for total inflows is FBTC by Fidelity, with almost 11.5 billion, and this is why in just over a year, Bitcoin ETFs have been able to attract more than 35 billion dollars of net capital in inflow.

It is therefore more than evident that the movements of the last few days are really insignificant, despite the fact that on the traditional markets the movements of the last few days are almost epochal.