US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $643.3 million in net outflows on October 30, the largest single-day withdrawal from the products since June 25. The departures, led by BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC, came one day after a $6.3 billion hack at Binance.

IBIT shed $233.7 million and FBTC roughly $201 million, together accounting for about two-thirds of the day's net withdrawals. Ark and 21Shares' ARKB lost $129.55 million, Grayscale's GBTC saw $53.3 million leave, and Bitwise's BITB recorded $25.7 million in outflows.

Data provider Laevitas calculated that the day's total represented less than 1% of fund assets. US spot bitcoin ETFs now hold $98.14 billion in net assets. For the week ended October 30, outflows totaled $202.6 million.

Cryptopolitan reported last week that a rebound in late October had pared the month's net outflows to roughly $26 million.

Ether funds saw $155.9 million in outflows on October 30, the largest single-day exit since October 7, with an additional $431.5 million leaving over the week.

Analysts frame the outflows

"The outflow from bitcoin funds is a sentiment shock," said Jeff Ko, chief analyst at ViaBTC. He noted that spot ETF holders have no direct exposure to Binance, since the underlying bitcoin is held by regulated custodians.

Rick Maeda, head of markets at Laevitas, said the $643 million figure amounted to less than 1% of spot bitcoin ETF assets and characterized the move as a "de-risking day" rather than a sign of capitulation or a loss of institutional confidence.

Dominick John, an analyst at Zeus Research, said steadier markets, deeper liquidity and firmer investor confidence are needed for a durable return of inflows into the ETFs. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index stood at 37, in fear territory, on November 1.

Binance reopens withdrawals with $3.64 billion in net outflows

Hackers drained about $6.3 billion from Binance's hot wallets on October 29 in what is the largest crypto theft to date. Binance said the breach may have started with a DevOps engineer's compromised laptop. Security firm Blockaid attributed the drain to signed authorizations on a single Ethereum hot wallet, Binance 14.

On October 31, the FBI attributed the theft to North Korea's TraderTraitor group. Previously, on-chain investigator ZachXBT had pointed to North Korea's Lazarus Group.

The industry moved to lock about $3 billion on-chain, with Tether freezing more than $1.567 billion in USDT and Circle freezing more than $800 million in USDC.

Binance began restoring withdrawals on November 1, reopening 15 networks and assets in its first phase. Over the first 9.5 hours, the exchange handled $4.65 billion in withdrawals against $1.01 billion in deposits, a net outflow of some $3.64 billion, or about 2.1% of its $171 billion in assets under management.

Market backdrop

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $78,138, up 0.3% in 24 hours and down 2.5% over the past seven days.

Maeda said markets would remain sensitive to headlines as traders await updates on the hack and the US midterms. Ko added that the midterms could shape how crypto market structure legislation moves through Congress.