Bitcoin ETFs Post Their Best Day in Nearly a Month as BlackRock Does All the Buying

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $526.7 million on Monday, their biggest single day since Sept. 22, according to Decrypt's ETF tracker. The last bigger session brought $714.7 million, which makes this the best day for the funds in nearly a month.

The inflow interrupted two weeks of selling in which the funds shed about $910 million, including a $484.9 million exit on Oct. 7, which was their worst day since June. Friday closed with another $82.4 million of net selling, which makes Monday a sharp turn.

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) did the heavy lifting with $665.2 million, more than the entire net total, according to Farside Investors. Fidelity's FBTC lost $83.6 million and Grayscale's GBTC lost $54.9 million, while the other funds recorded no flows at all.

Other crypto funds went the opposite way. Spot Ethereum ETFs lost $103 million on Monday, their fourth straight day of outflows, and Solana ETFs lost $6.7 million, according to Decrypt’s SOL ETF tracker. Netted against those losses, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana funds together still drew roughly $417 million.

BlackRock topped both lists: Its Ethereum fund ETHA accounted for $95.4 million of the Ethereum outflow, the same day IBIT took in $665.2 million.

Bitcoin hovered around $82,000 on Monday, close to the $82,300 average cost basis that Nexo analyst Iliya Kalchev estimated for ETF holders last week. Cost basis is the average price investors paid for their coins, so a price near it means the typical holder is roughly at breakeven.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, traded between $108 and $110 a barrel on Monday after weekend attacks on Persian Gulf tankers. Expensive oil raises the cost of fuel and freight, which feeds into the prices consumers pay. Since almost everything you can think of requires some transportation to reach consumers, markets tend to follow oil prices very carefully and react accordingly.

That feed-through is visible in the consumer price index, which rose 3.7% in the 12 months through September, with the energy index up 20.4%. Persistent inflation keeps the Federal Reserve leaning toward another increase after it lifted its target range by a quarter point in September.

Expected rate hikes push up Treasury yields, the return investors earn for lending to the U.S. government. The 10-year yield stayed above 5% on Monday, per Treasury data, and the 30-year touched about 5.7% on Oct. 7, the day of the $484.9 million exit.

Bitcoin pays no yield, so a Treasury returning more than 5% with far less price risk competes for the same money. The $261.4 million that left the funds on Oct. 14 came the same day the September CPI report was released.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs are still about $88 million in the red for October with nine trading sessions left, and the Federal Reserve meets on Oct. 27-28.