$1.16 Billion Withdrawn from Bitcoin ETFs in Three Trading Days

American spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $1.16 billion over three trading sessions. Despite the sales, Bitwise's head of research, Andre Dragos, believes this is a short-term deterioration in market sentiment rather than a mass withdrawal of major investors from Bitcoin.

According to Farside Investors, $643.2 million was withdrawn from funds on October 30, $398.6 million on November 2, and $115.6 million on November 3. Thus, the outflow continued for three consecutive sessions, but its daily volume decreased.

Why Bitwise Does Not Consider the Outflows a Long-Term Trend

“I do think it’s related to a short-term risk-off environment rather than a structural change in institutional sentiment,” Dragos told Cointelegraph. In translation: “I believe this is due to a short-term reduction in risk appetite, not a structural change in institutional investor sentiment.”

To support his assessment, the analyst referred to a Bitwise study among 15 large organizations. According to the report dated September 23, none of the respondents reduced their share of crypto assets during the significant market downturn from late 2025 to mid-2026. However, the study concerns cryptocurrency investments in general, not just Bitcoin ETFs, and its results cannot be generalized to all institutional investors.

According to Dragos, ETFs are also actively invested in by private individuals, whose decisions may change more quickly amid increased volatility. Meanwhile, daily fund flows do not allow for precise identification of which categories of owners were selling shares.

Market Assesses the Impact of Binance Hack

Outflows intensified following the attack on Binance on October 29, affecting digital assets worth approximately $6.34 billion. The incident once again drew attention to the security of cryptocurrency storage, but Dragos pointed out the differences between exchange hot wallets and institutional custodians' cold storage.

On November 3, the largest outflow among individual funds was from BlackRock IBIT – $95 million. Simultaneously, Bitwise BITB attracted $21.9 million, indicating the heterogeneous movement of funds between products.

At the time of publication by Cointelegraph, Bitcoin was trading around $78,000, and the fear and greed index rose from 26 to 34 points, remaining in the fear zone. The slowdown in outflows was one of the signs of stabilization but does not confirm that investors have definitively returned to buying.