U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have been on a massive streak, having seen almost $3 billion worth of inflows over the past six trading days. But the tailwind the funds were enjoying seems to have gone slack, as so-called “Uptober” closed with $31.3 million worth of inflows on Thursday, according to CoinGlass.
Yesterday’s Bitcoin ETF trading saw BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) pull in $317 million. But that was offset by almost every other fund in the category seeing outflows.
The only exception was Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund (BRRR), which saw investors deposit $1.9 million more than was withdrawn, according to CoinGlass.
Earlier this week, the BTC ETFs as a category reached an important milestone as they had accumulated more than 1 million BTC. That means the U.S.-traded funds haven’t got very far to go before they exceed the 1.1 million BTC that’s sitting in a wallet that belongs to elusive Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price has bounced back above $70,000 after cooling off during early European trading hours.
BTC is currently trading at around $71,150, up 0.5% on the day, per data from CoinGecko. And despite some optimistic predictions that it could set a new all-time high before voters head to the polls in the U.S. on Tuesday, the Bitcoin price is still 3.1% shy of making that a reality.
To hear ByBit analysts tell it, the BTC price volatility present in markets now looks very similar to what was seen at the start of the year ahead of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approving spot Bitcoin ETFs to begin trading.
“As the U.S. election nears, short-term implied volatility has risen to multi-month highs, significantly outpacing the longer end of the term structure and causing a notable inversion,” ByBit analysts wrote. “This shift indicates heightened positioning activity ahead of the election early next week, similar to the pattern seen before the Bitcoin Spot ETF launch in January 2024.”
Earlier this week, analysts had been saying that today’s U.S. jobs report was going to be a key indicator to watch ahead of next week’s U.S. election and then the Federal Open Markets Committee’s decision on interest rates on Friday.
But that doesn’t seem to have materialized.
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. added 12,000 jobs in September—way lower than the 100,000 estimated by Dow Jones—crypto markets seemed largely unfazed. That’s perhaps because despite actual jobs added missing estimates by a long shot, the unemployment rate has remained unchanged at 4.1%.