Bitcoin ETFs Are Green Again—Here’s Why Investors Should Zoom Out

Bitcoin ETFs have posted back-to-back positive weeks for the first time since early May.

The 13 U.S. spot Bitcoin funds pulled in $75.7 million in net inflows (money in exceeding money out) for the week ending July 17, according to SoSoValue data. That followed $197.4 million the prior week, bringing the two-week total to $273.1 million in net gains across the funds.

When inflows exceed outflows, the easiest translation is that retail traders are buying more Bitcoin than they are selling.

The big round number, $273 million, sounds meaningful until you zoom out. From mid-May through early July, these same funds bled through eight consecutive weeks of net outflows, draining more than $8.2 billion. June 2026 alone saw about $4.5 billion exit—the worst single month on record since these products launched.

The $273 million recovered so far is roughly 3.3 cents on every dollar lost.

Even within the latest green week, volatility showed up on Monday when $424.7 million left the funds in a single day—the largest one-day withdrawal since June 26—after renewed U.S.-Iran military escalation rattled markets. Investors reversed course the following four days and closed the week in the green.

Gold’s ghost

Bitcoin ETFs are exchange-traded funds—stock market products that hold Bitcoin on investors’ behalf, so you don’t need to manage a crypto wallet yourself. When these funds debuted in early 2024, after years of SEC denials, they got off to a roaring start—fulfilling the promise of bringing in billions in fresh capital to the Bitcoin market.

More recently, however, as markets turned bearish, Bitcoin ETF investors have been heading for the exits.

Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas published a framework on July 17 that may be the most useful lens available for anyone holding Bitcoin ETFs right now. His argument: The 22-year history of gold ETFs—specifically GLD, the first gold ETF listed on a U.S. exchange—is the closest roadmap Bitcoin ETF investors have.

The parallel rests on a simple structural point. Both Bitcoin and gold are what analysts call “non-yielding stores of value”—they don’t pay dividends, generate earnings, or carry government guarantees the way stocks and bonds do. Their price is driven by one thing: whether people want them, which makes both extremely sensitive to shifts in sentiment.

GLD’s history illustrates both extremes. The fund became so popular so fast that it briefly surpassed SPY—the largest stock market ETF in the world—to become the biggest ETF on the planet for a single day in 2011. Then it spent eight years in the doldrums trying to get back there.

Balchunas sees a “spiritual parallel” with IBIT: BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF briefly crossed $100 billion in assets last October, coinciding almost exactly with Bitcoin’s all-time high above $126,000. Then the slide started. Bitcoin has since lost roughly half of its value, currently trading near $64,000.

But for long-term hodlers, a 50% crash isn’t really that bad of a crypto winter—at least not historically.

“Bitcoin ETFs may be following the same script: spectacular gains, painful drawdowns and recoveries that may test investors’ patience,” Balchunas wrote.

BlackRock’s IBIT has sold close to 100,000 BTC in recent months to meet redemptions, leaving it with just over 733,000 BTC under management. The cautious optimism from Balchunas: Every gold ETF cycle means the asset moons after a crash. “Two steps forward, one step back,” he wrote—while flagging that the process can test patience for far longer than most investors expect.

Citigroup made the opposite bet on July 1. The bank cut its 12-month Bitcoin price target from $112,000 to $82,000 and reset its projected ETF inflows for the next year to zero—down from an earlier estimate of $10 billion—citing negative flows, stalled U.S. crypto legislation, and weakening institutional appetite.

The combined $77.7 billion in total net assets across all 13 spot Bitcoin ETFs is down from over $106 billion recorded just before the outflow streak began in mid-May.