US spot Bitcoin ETFs have bled $825.7 million over the past five trading days, capping Christmas Eve with another $175.3 million in redemptions as BTC drifts around $87,800. Fresh data from Farside Investors shows every US session from December 18 to 24 closed with net outflows across the 11 spot products. A new Cointelegraph readout framed the streak as turning the US into Bitcoin’s short term “biggest seller” heading into the holidays.
Five straight red days into Christmas Eve
The flow pattern is clean. Farside’s table shows net outflows of $161.3 million on December 18, $158.3 million on the 19th, $142.2 million on the 22nd, $188.6 million on the 23rd, and $175.3 million on the 24th. Together that adds up to $825.7 million pulled from US spot Bitcoin ETFs in a single trading week.
The selling is broad rather than isolated in one issuer. Fidelity’s FBTC swung from a $391.5 million inflow on December 17 to a $170.3 million outflow the very next day. BlackRock’s IBIT still drove the largest single outflows late in the run, including $173.6 million on December 19 and $91.4 million on Christmas Eve, but flows from GBTC, BITB, ARKB and others kept the aggregate tape red.
Tuesday, December 23, now stands out as a focal print. According to The Block, US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $188.6 million in net outflows that day, led by $157.3 million exiting IBIT. The same session produced $95.5 million in net outflows from spot Ether ETFs, with Grayscale’s ETHE shedding $50.9 million.
US sells, Asia buys
The flows line up with a shift in intraday price leadership. Coinbase’s BTC/USD pair has traded at a discount to Binance’s BTC/USDT market for much of December, a negative Coinbase Premium that tracks persistent US session weakness even as Asian hours grind higher.
“US is now the biggest seller of $BTC. Asia is now the biggest buyer of Bitcoin,” crypto analyst Ted Pillows wrote on X, sharing session-by-session return charts that show US hours at the bottom of the stack.
Traders on X also pointed to calendar drivers. One desk highlighted tax loss harvesting as a key driver of December selling. The same thread flagged Friday’s large options expiry as another reason for US funds to flatten risk into the break rather than carry exposure.
Ether ETFs quietly bleed even more
While Bitcoin ETFs grabbed the headline $825.7 million figure, Ether products have been bleeding for longer. Farside’s Ethereum dashboard, summarized in multiple Blockchain.news flashes, shows US spot Ether ETFs posting net outflows of $224.8 million on December 15, $96.6 million on December 18 and $75.9 million on December 19. That is roughly $397 million in three trading days, concentrated in BlackRock’s ETHA and Grayscale’s ETHE.
The Block and other outlets now track Bitcoin and Ether ETF flows in tandem. Their latest readout highlights that both complexes flipped back into net outflows last week, with spot Bitcoin ETFs losing $497.1 million over the week ended December 19 after a prior week of $286.6 million in inflows.
On Christmas Day trading, BTC holds near $87,800, marginally green on the session, while ETH trades around $2,940 with a slight intraday gain. Price action remains pinned near the middle of the recent $85,000 to $90,000 range as spot flows and options positioning offset each other.
Seasonal mechanics, not a blow-off top
The data lands in a broader regime of soft but persistent outflows. Charts shared in the Cointelegraph report show the 30 day moving average for both Bitcoin and Ether ETF netflows below zero since early November. Flow momentum flipped months before price and has not yet recovered.
Research outfits that spoke to The Block and others tied the latest prints to year end mechanics. Kronos Research’s Vincent Liu pointed to portfolio rebalancing, profit taking and thin holiday liquidity. LVRG Research’s Nick Ruck added tax loss harvesting and pre holiday de risking to the list. Presto Research’s Rick Maeda reminded clients that flows have been choppy for months and described the current moves as balance sheet housekeeping rather than a structural exit from crypto risk.
Context from last year backs that up. In the four trading days leading into Christmas 2024, spot Bitcoin ETFs lost more than $1.5 billion as BTC pulled back from a fresh all time high. This year’s $825.7 million drawdown is smaller in dollar terms despite a higher Bitcoin price and a much larger ETF footprint.
One trader quoted by Cointelegraph argued that ETF flows typically bottom before price. In that playbook, BTC first grinds sideways, then ETF flows stabilize around zero, and only then do fresh creations restart a sustained leg higher. For now, the five day bleed into Christmas tells a simpler story. US desks are closing the year as net sellers of ETF Bitcoin while Asia quietly accumulates on the other side of the clock.
