Spot Bitcoin ETF outflows in the United States reached 434 million dollars during Thursday’s trading session, according to the latest data from SoSoValue. This negative flow, added to the 545 million withdrawn the previous day, occurred while the digital currency’s value briefly touched the psychological mark of 60,000 dollars per unit this Friday morning.
Despite the fact that inflows of 561 million dollars were recorded on Monday, the weekly balance shows a net loss of 690 million. Institutional investors seem to be reacting with caution to the absence of clear catalysts to drive a bounce, causing Bitcoin ETF outflows to dominate the sector’s financial narrative during this week of high volatility across global markets.
Analysts warn about the dangers of paper Bitcoin on Wall Street desks
On the other hand, the recent institutionalization of the asset through exchange-traded funds has revived the debate about the coin’s true scarcity. Bob Kendall, technical analyst and author of The Kendall Report, noted that the creation of derivative instruments allows the same token to support multiple financial products simultaneously, potentially diluting the fixed supply characteristic that defines these popular global cryptocurrencies nowadays.
This “fractional reserve” structure has been harshly criticized by analysts such as Josef Tětek, who warns that ETFs could facilitate the creation of millions of unbacked units. The Bitcoin ETF outflows reflect, in part, this technical distrust, as the market fears that Wall Street might use these products to aggressively trade against the intrinsic value of the asset which is considered digital gold by many.
Likewise, the price drop below the average production cost, currently near 87,000 dollars, has increased pressure on mining treasuries and institutional funds. Although the total assets in these funds remain near 81 billion, the constant Bitcoin ETF outflows suggest that the conviction of large holders is being tested by the current market correction affecting several digital asset classes simultaneously.
Is the current ETF structure a threat to the limited supply of Bitcoin?
Nevertheless, the outlook for altcoins shows a mixed trend following recent massive liquidation events on international exchange platforms. While Ether funds lost 80.8 million dollars, products linked to XRP and Solana managed to capture modest positive flows, evidencing a selective rotation of institutional capital seeking to diversify risk in the face of the Bitcoin ETF outflows recorded recently.
In this way, the cryptographic community continues to seek the exact factors behind this retreat, which has led the currency to levels seen in late 2024. The Bitcoin ETF outflows act as a thermometer of market sentiment, indicating that until the price manages to stabilize, the selling pressure could continue to affect the liquidity of the main exchange-traded funds in New York.
Furthermore, the emergence of options and perpetual contracts on the ETFs themselves has complicated the supply and demand dynamics in the spot market. Many experts consider that the Bitcoin ETF outflows are a symptom of this excessive leverage system, which generates artificial price movements that do not reflect the real scarcity of the 21 million coins programmed into the original blockchain code.
Therefore, the market is in a rebalancing phase where the resilience of fund buyers will be fundamental to stopping the bearish trend. It is expected that if the 60,000 dollar support manages to hold firm, the Bitcoin ETF outflows will gradually decrease, allowing institutional confidence to return to the levels observed at the beginning of this year 2026.
However, the possibility of further deleveraging remains a latent risk for investors operating in this environment of regulatory and economic uncertainty. While institutions analyze the impact of “paper Bitcoin,” the evolution of weekly flows will define whether this technical adjustment is an accumulation opportunity or the prelude to a much deeper corrective phase for the digital sector as a whole.
