U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have just come through the heaviest redemption wave since their launch. According to TechFlow, citing Galaxy Research, the products recorded 13 consecutive trading days of net outflows between May 15 and June 3, with total withdrawals of about $4.37 billion, equivalent to roughly 59,000 BTC. The streak was the longest since the batch of spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading in January 2024. It also surpassed the previous record set in February 2025, when the funds saw eight straight days of outflows totaling $3.2 billion.
Fund flows are one of the clearest ways to track institutional positioning in Bitcoin. Spot ETFs buy and sell physical Bitcoin in response to investor subscriptions and redemptions, so inflows and outflows directly reflect changes in fund holdings. Galaxy Research said outflow volumes over the 7-day, 10-day and 20-day windows all reached record highs during the period, showing that selling pressure was not isolated to a single session but persisted across several weeks. The withdrawal wave also pushed 2026 year-to-date net flows for U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs into negative territory for the first time. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas confirmed that annual flows had turned negative.
BlackRock’s IBIT was the center of the redemption wave. Farside Investors data showed that IBIT alone lost about $3.3 billion during the outflow streak, accounting for roughly three quarters of the total. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with about $456.6 million in outflows, while Grayscale’s GBTC lost about $303.6 million. IBIT had been the strongest asset gatherer among the spot Bitcoin ETFs since launch, but in this episode it became the main source of redemptions.
The decline in Bitcoin’s price amplified the effect of the withdrawals. The Defiant, citing SoSoValue data, reported that total assets across all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs fell from about $104.29 billion on May 15 to about $82.83 billion on June 3, a three-week contraction of roughly $21.5 billion. That decline reflected both direct redemptions and a drop in the value of the funds’ holdings, as Bitcoin fell from above $80,000 to near $63,000 over the same period, a decline of about 21%.
Measured by holdings, the ETFs held about 1.277 million BTC, around 7.2% below the peak reached in October 2025. Their holdings represented about 6.36% of Bitcoin’s circulating market capitalization, down from more than 7% at the mid-May high. One redemption stood out on May 28, when BlackRock’s IBIT posted $527.8 million in single-day net outflows, the second-largest daily redemption in the fund’s history. For the full month of May, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs recorded $2.43 billion in net outflows, the largest monthly outflow on record, with $1.42 billion coming in the final week alone.
The turn began in early June. On June 5, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs ended the 13-day outflow streak with a small net inflow of $3.05 million. The amount was modest relative to the size of the market, but the direction changed. On the same day, Ethereum ETFs also ended 17 consecutive days of outflows, recording $19.3 million in net inflows, all of which came from BlackRock’s ETHA.
The stronger signal arrived on June 12. SoSoValue data showed that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $85.84 million in net inflows that day. Five funds attracted inflows, while the remaining seven recorded zero net flows. None of the 12 products posted a net outflow. TechFlow described the session as a day when all funds avoided outflows, a condition watched by bullish participants as a sign that redemption pressure had eased.
Standard Chartered’s global head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, included the ETF flow shift in his Bitcoin bottom checklist. In a short note to clients on Friday, Kendrick said crypto asset prices had reached the low point of the current cycle, corresponding to Bitcoin near $59,000, down 53% from a high of $126,000. He cited three confirmation points: Strategy reported that it bought more Bitcoin last week, ETFs recorded positive inflows on Friday, and oil prices continued to move lower. He ended the note with the line: “The winter is over, welcome back to crypto spring.”
A single day of $85.84 million in inflows does not erase roughly $4.4 billion in withdrawals over three weeks. Still, TechFlow framed the clean no-outflow session as a starting point for observing whether selling pressure had peaked. A calculation cited by Cryptopolitan said ETF flows now explain about 45% of Bitcoin’s weekly price movement. Since their January 2024 launch, the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have still accumulated more than $55 billion in net inflows and remain less than $10 billion below their historical peak. Balchunas therefore described the $4.4 billion outflow as a meaningful momentum reversal, rather than a structural collapse.