Spot Bitcoin ETF Balances Hit All-Time High

Balances across US spot bitcoin ETFs have hit a record high of 900,636 BTC, worth around $63 billion.

Bitcoin’s volatility over the last few weeks might have ordinarily sent crypto investors into a state of panic, but a resurgence of inflows into US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) suggests otherwise.

Data from Glassnode  on July 17 shows that balances across these funds now sit at an all-time high of 900,636 BTC as of Thursday. In US dollar terms, that equates to more than $63 billion across the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs.

It might have been the drawdown in bitcoin’s price that attracted a bulk of these inflows. Glassnode found that Bitcoin ETFs started to see their first significant tranche of positive inflows — $1 billion in total last week — around the same time that bitcoin dropped under the $54,000 market.

Traders have attributed much of the recent market volatility to the German government’s massive sell-off spanning more than three weeks, despite the country’s authorities claiming that the scale of their trades were “gentle on the market” with “no direct influence on price.”

A decline in Bitcoin miners’ profitability, which could potentially prompt them to sell their holdings, could also have played a part in the negative price action. However, analysts at Glassnode suggest the impact miners have on the market is not quite what it used to be.

“Miners have historically been a primary source of sell-side pressure, however their supply relevance does decrease with each halving event,” said Glassnode in the firm’s latest weekly report examining the state of onchain activity.

Comparing net flows between miners and ETF onchain wallets, Glassnode found that flows from the latter are “likely to have a market influence of around 4x to 8x larger than for miners.”

July 19, 6:33 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to correct the all-time high BTC figure in the body of the article from 600,636 to 900,636