Bitcoin spot ETF sees first weekly net inflow in nine weeks—are institutional funds “turning around”?

After nearly two months of silence, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have finally brought some warmth. For the week ending July 11, the category recorded a net inflow of $197.4 million, marking the first positive reading in nine weeks and ending the redemption wave that had continued for eight straight weeks since May. BlackRock’s IBIT pulled in $291.9 million in a single week, nearly holding up the market on its own; meanwhile Grayscale’s BTC, Fidelity’s FBTC, and ARKB are still seeing net outflows, with capital clearly diverging.

Where is the money coming from? One explanation is that the AI heatwave in U.S. stocks is cooling—funds withdrawn from the likes of Nvidia are starting to refill the crypto exposure that was hit hard earlier this year; on the other side, expectations for a Fed rate cut shifting again have also provided a floor for risk assets. But 10x Research poured cold water: since May 11, ETFs have been drained of $8.26 billion, and this week’s return of less than $200 million is not enough in terms of scale to call a “reversal”—more like a test.

Among related targets, MSTR (MicroStrategy), as a “proxy stock” for Bitcoin holdings, also took a breather in line with ETF sentiment during the same period. To truly confirm the trend, though, we’ll need to see whether IBIT can keep the inflows going for multiple weeks—one week of turning positive is just a signal; the game isn’t over yet.⏳