U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have recorded five consecutive days of net outflows, with investors withdrawing roughly $1.44 billion from the products as they pull back from risk assets after a turbulent week for markets.

Analysts said the redemptions remain modest relative to the roughly $55 billion the funds have taken in overall, but cautioned that buying demand has dried up.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs hold the asset directly and began trading in the U.S. in January 2024, giving investors in conventional brokerage accounts exposure to Bitcoin without handling the token itself. Their daily flow figures have since become a closely tracked gauge of institutional demand for the asset.

According to SoSoValue data, the funds lost some $1.44 billion between November 5 and November 11, including $299.9 million on Wednesday alone. Combined with the $520 million that left the products in October, cumulative net outflows for November so far have reached $1.88 billion.

The selling has unfolded alongside a sharp pullback in AI and technology stocks. On November 5, when the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5% in a single day, Bitcoin ETFs posted net outflows of about $430 million.

"This wave of outflows is the result of institutional investors actively or passively reducing their risk exposure following a decline in macro risk appetite, which is not yet sufficient to prove that Bitcoin's long-term allocation thesis has reversed," Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey, told Decrypt.

The five-day stretch amounts to roughly 2.6% of the funds' $55.1 billion in cumulative net inflows—"far from a full-scale retreat," Sun said. The strain is still visible: total net assets have fallen to $93.7 billion, down about 45% from the $169.5 billion peak reached in October 2025, as outflows and falling prices compound one another.

Bitcoin was trading at $73,358, down 0.87% over the past 24 hours, according to Decrypt data. On the Decrypt Predict platform, users assigned a 40% chance to Bitcoin trading above $74,000 by Sunday afternoon, and a 94% chance that it would hold above the $70,000 level.

Sun estimated that the average holding cost for spot Bitcoin ETFs is around $81,000, meaning some ETF holders are now sitting on unrealized losses at current prices. He added that some investors may cut their exposure further as they reassess their allocations heading into year-end.

A shortage of new buyers

Analysts said the bigger concern, however, is not the size of the outflows but a shortage of new buyers. In a note shared with Decrypt, Greg Cipolaro, head of research at BitGo, said the post-election bounce brought only $75 million into spot Bitcoin ETFs, while the supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins contracted 1.9% to $286.3 billion, "suggesting little fresh capital is waiting on the sidelines."

Onchain analytics firm Glassnode found that total stablecoin supply fell by $14.2 billion in the 30 days through November 9—the fastest contraction since June 2022, Decrypt reported on Wednesday.

The retreat of a popular arbitrage strategy has added to the pressure. Hedge funds had been running the basis trade, buying spot ETF shares while shorting futures to capture the price gap between the two markets. That strategy has become less attractive because the basis has fallen below borrowing costs, prompting many funds to exit, Cipolaro said. One consequence, according to Sun, is that ETF flows may now reflect directional demand for Bitcoin more directly than before.

Corporate buyers have slowed as well. Sun noted that the premium of Strategy's stock over the value of its Bitcoin holdings has narrowed, making it less attractive for the company to raise fresh capital to buy more of the asset, while MSCI's decision to exclude the firm from its indexes could cut off a channel of passive investment.

"The most critical factor to watch right now is the persistent lack of buying demand itself, the impact of which on prices may be more significant than the outflow figures alone," he said.

Cipolaro added that Bitcoin had fallen alongside risk assets but lagged their recoveries. "Unless it begins to participate in rallies and ETF demand strengthens, digital assets could remain exposed to further downside without benefiting from a broader risk asset rebound," he wrote. Both analysts pointed to the same set of checkpoints for the sessions ahead: daily ETF flow reports, the trajectory of stablecoin supply, and whether Bitcoin keeps pace when risk assets rally.

Many people forget just how long the 'winter' was for $GLD . It had an initial burst, even becaming the biggest ETF in world for one day in 2011 ,and then the bad times came and and it (saw 40% of investors bail) and took nearly a DECADE to get back to its that aum high again.… pic.twitter.com/Ny9gyyo1Am

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) November 11, 2026

Not everyone views the outflows as a long-term warning sign. In a post on X on November 11, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas compared Bitcoin ETFs with the gold ETF GLD, launched in 2004, which saw around 40% of its investors leave after its 2011 peak and took nearly a decade to recover its assets—but now holds nearly three times that early high. "Assets without cash flows run purely on sentiment and it changes," he wrote.