Bitcoin ETF Inflows of $110M Flow Entirely Into BlackRock IBIT

One fund, one direction

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds started the last full week of October with a net gain of about $110.3 million on Monday, October 26. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) accounted for all of it, and no other bitcoin fund recorded meaningful activity.18 Farside Investors' tallies agree. They show IBIT taking in $110.3 million while every other tracked U.S. spot bitcoin ETF, including Fidelity's FBTC and Grayscale's GBTC, reported zero net flow.4

The headline number is modest. What stands out is how narrow the buying was. Across a field of 12 products, IBIT was the only one to post an inflow.8 The group traded about $1.86 billion that day, and IBIT handled roughly $1.38 billion of it. FBTC traded $217.4 million and GBTC traded $81.2 million.8 Total net assets across the funds ended the day at $102.84 billion, about 6.41% of bitcoin's market capitalization.36 IBIT's lifetime net inflows reached $66.24 billion. That is more than the roughly $57.29 billion in cumulative net inflows for the whole category, because outflows from other funds have offset part of BlackRock's haul.68

The dollar figure also translates into coins. One analyst estimated that IBIT's purchases came to about 1,380 BTC, or roughly three days of newly mined supply.4

Context: a whipsaw October

Monday's inflow ended two straight sessions of withdrawals.8 It also followed one of the roughest stretches of the year. On October 22 the funds lost $635.6 million, the biggest single-day outflow since June. That wiped out the $528.4 million they had taken in the day before.15 IBIT led that sell-off with $254.1 million in outflows, ahead of FBTC at $217.5 million and ARK 21Shares' ARKB at $109.4 million.15 Another $137.9 million left on October 23.1014 One market summary connected the October 22 exodus to about $800 million in long liquidations after bitcoin briefly fell below $80,000.17

The swings in both directions show why one day of flows says little. Earlier in the same week, the funds took in $526.7 million on Monday and $528.4 million on Wednesday.15 BlackRock posted its largest inflow of 2026 around that time.1 IBIT's dominance therefore runs both ways: it has been the main channel for new money and, on bad days, the main channel for redemptions.

Demand also held up into Tuesday. Spot bitcoin ETFs added about $176 million on October 27, which brought the two-day total to $286 million.2 Bitcoin climbed back to around $80,700 after briefly slipping below $80,000.10

Where the numbers disagree

The broad picture is consistent across reports, but the details are not. Most outlets that cite SoSoValue and Farside put Monday's figure at $110.3 million.148 At least one aggregated flash report said $1.1 billion, which looks like a decimal error since the same item also gives the correct $110 million total.37 Readers should treat any billion-dollar figure for that session with suspicion.

Month-to-date totals vary more. One report put October at about $202 million in net outflows through Monday.10 Another tracker had about $203 million.19 A third summary had roughly $314 million.17 After Tuesday's inflow, one outlet said the October deficit had shrunk to about $26 million.2 Even the week of October 19–23 was described two different ways, as a $301 million inflow in one report and a much different figure in another.17 Some independent trackers also post daily numbers that differ sharply from the SoSoValue-based ones.1115

The likely explanation is timing and methodology. Data providers update on different schedules and treat late-reporting funds differently. The direction is consistent across all of them: October has been roughly flat to slightly negative after a strong late summer. Monthly archives show inflows of about $3.5 billion in August and $2.6 billion in September, following a $4.5 billion outflow in June.13

Bitcoin up, ether down

The split between asset classes may matter more than the split between issuers. On the same Monday that IBIT took in $110 million, spot ether ETFs lost $88.58 million. BlackRock's own ETHA accounted for $104.71 million of that, partly offset by $16.13 million into Fidelity's FETH.19 So the largest issuer saw big inflows into its bitcoin fund and big redemptions from its ether fund on the same day.4

The weakness in ether is not new. U.S. spot ether ETFs have shed about $1.32 billion in October, the biggest monthly outflow since November 2025.2 Other alternative-asset products also lost money on Monday: Solana funds $8.23 million, HYPE funds $4.30 million and XRP funds $3.61 million.14 The only exceptions were small. Grayscale's zcash fund extended its inflow streak with $1.96 million, and Bitwise's NEAR product added $1.40 million.5

This pattern looks less like a broad return of risk appetite and more like a shift toward quality. Institutional allocators who want crypto exposure are choosing the most liquid, most established product and cutting their higher-beta positions.

Why IBIT keeps winning

IBIT's lead is not about price. Through mid-October, IBIT charged a 0.25% fee, the same as Fidelity's FBTC. Morgan Stanley's MSBT charged 0.14% and Grayscale's mini trust 0.15%.12 MSBT only launched in April and has had just one day of net outflows, but it has not come close to matching BlackRock's volume.15 IBIT's advantage seems to come from its liquidity, its distribution network and its brand with advisers, all of which tend to reinforce each other.

BlackRock is also adding products. On October 19 it filed with the SEC for the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF (PBIT), a fund built to limit investor losses.15 Some commentators have questioned whether the product's downside protection is the risk-management tool the sector needs.5 Still, the filing shows the issuer moving into structured, outcome-oriented products aimed at more cautious wealth-management clients.

For competing issuers, Monday was an uncomfortable data point. FBTC lost about $461 million in the first half of October alone, while IBIT gained $261 million over the same period.12 When demand comes back and goes almost entirely to one fund, the market is concentrating.

The regulation angle: agencies, not Congress

The flows are coming in during a regulatory push that is happening in agencies rather than in legislation. The CLARITY Act, the House-passed market-structure bill meant to divide crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC, failed a Senate cloture vote 49–50 on September 15.2528 With the 119th Congress winding down, lawyers expect the bill will have to be reintroduced after January 2027.21

Regulators have moved forward on their own. On October 1, the SEC proposed custody rules that would make it easier for investment advisers and regulated funds to hold crypto. The rules would allow self-custody in some cases and let state trust companies act as custodians.22 SEC Chairman Paul Atkins described it as creating a compliant path where none had existed.22 On October 5, the CFTC released an advance notice for rules covering leveraged, margined or financed retail crypto trading. It would create a new type of registered venue called a "crypto asset market."30 Unregulated spot trading in bitcoin and ether remains a gap, although the CFTC can still police fraud and manipulation in those markets.30 Separately, an SEC interpretation from March 2026 already lists bitcoin as a digital commodity.23

The custody proposal could matter more for ETF flows than any single trading session. If advisers get clearer rules for holding crypto, the wealth-management channel that has mostly favored IBIT could widen. One limitation, as one law firm notes, is that rules written by agencies are easier for future commissions to undo than laws passed by Congress.21 Institutions with long time horizons may take that into account.

What to watch

In the near term, attention is on the Federal Reserve's October 28 rate decision. Traders said Monday's flows reflected positioning ahead of that announcement.4 Market pricing had put the odds of a rate hike at about 9.4%, down from 64.2% a month earlier.17 Technical analysts are watching resistance around $45.70 on IBIT.10

The real test is whether demand spreads beyond one fund. Several reports make the same point: inflows across many issuers are a stronger signal of institutional conviction than buying through a single product.15 For now, the $110 million day mainly shows that big allocators still have an appetite for bitcoin and that they overwhelmingly buy it through BlackRock.