George TsagkarakisOne trading day. That’s the entire distance between a $265.4 million net outflow and a $170.1 million net inflow across U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs.
July 31 was ugly. Aug. 3 was green. And if you stop reading there, you’ll take away exactly the wrong lesson, because one fund did most of the lifting.
The green day was real, but it wasn’t evenly spread
Seven of the 12 listed funds pulled in cash on Aug. 3. Five were flat. Not a single one of the 12 fund columns reported a net outflow.
That’s a clean sweep by the standards of this product category, where a typical session mixes redemptions from the legacy trust with creations at the newer funds.
But BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for about 65.5% of the day’s total. Nearly two-thirds, from one issuer.
What the flow table actually shows
Farside Investors’ daily flow table put IBIT at $111.4 million. Fidelity’s FBTC came in second at $33.4 million.
After that, the numbers get small fast. EZBC added $9.2 million. BTCO took in $6.7 million and HODL drew $4.5 million. BITB and ARKB added $2.8 million and $2.1 million, respectively.
BRRR, BTCW, MSBT, GBTC and BTC were flat. The seven positive entries add up exactly to Farside’s $170.1 million daily total, which is a useful sanity check when you’re reading these tables.
Strip IBIT out and the other six positive funds combined for $58.7 million. That’s the number worth writing down. BlackRock’s fund remained the main source of net inflows even as more issuers participated.
The selloff it’s being compared against
The July 31 damage reached across five funds, and it started at the top. IBIT posted $122.7 million of net outflows.
FBTC lost $54.8 million. GBTC recorded $52.6 million of redemptions. ARKB lost $17.5 million and BITB lost $17.8 million.
No fund reported a net inflow that session. Zero positive rows, out of 12.
This exact pattern already happened three days earlier
Here’s the part that complicates the recovery narrative. On July 30, one trading day before the rout, seven funds reported positive net flows and none reported a net outflow.
The group attracted $233.1 million that session. More money, same breadth, and it was followed immediately by the worst day of the stretch.
So the positive-fund count went seven, then zero, then seven. Breadth on July 30 told you nothing about July 31.
What would make Aug. 3 mean something
Repeated positive contributions from multiple funds across complete sessions would be stronger evidence of broadening than a single green row. One day of seven-fund participation is a data point, not a trend.
The concentration sets a tougher threshold for calling this a durable recovery. Cash reached beyond IBIT on Aug. 3, which is genuinely different from a session where BlackRock absorbs everything. But a 65.5% share means the distribution stayed top-heavy.
Bitcoin is +1.01% over the past 24 hours and currently sits at rank # 1 by market cap. That’s a rounding error of a move, and it’s a reminder that $170.1 million in ETF creations doesn’t automatically translate into price action.
How to read the next few tables
Watch the count of positive funds, not the headline dollar figure. A $200 million day where IBIT does 90% of it is a weaker signal than a $100 million day split five ways.
And check whether GBTC stays flat. It sat at zero on Aug. 3 after $52.6 million of redemptions on July 31, and the legacy trust turning from a drag into a non-factor matters more to the daily net than another mid-sized fund adding $2 million.
