U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETF investors are showing notable resilience despite Bitcoin’s four-month downturn, according to ETF analyst James Seyffart.
“The ETFs are still hanging in there pretty good,” Seyffart wrote in an X post on Wednesday.
Seyffart noted that ETF holders are experiencing their “biggest losses” since the products launched in January 2024, with paper losses of roughly 42% as Bitcoin trades below $73,000. However, he argued that recent outflows remain modest compared with the massive inflows seen during the market’s peak.
Before the October decline, spot Bitcoin ETFs had attracted about $62.11 billion in net inflows. That figure has since slipped to roughly $55 billion, based on preliminary data from Farside.
“Not too shabby,” Seyffart added.
Meanwhile, investment researcher Jim Bianco said in an X post on Wednesday that the average spot Bitcoin ETF investor is about 24% “underwater and still holding.”
Market participants often track spot Bitcoin ETF performance and fund flows as a proxy for broader sentiment and clues about Bitcoin’s near-term price direction.
‘Very Short-Sighted’ Bitcoiners
Crypto analytics account Rand noted in a Tuesday X post that this marks “the first time in history” spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen three straight months of outflows. That trend coincides with Bitcoin’s spot price dropping 24.73% over the past 30 days, with BTC trading around $70,537 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.
Some analysts argue investors are losing sight of the longer-term picture. ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said on Jan. 28 that Bitcoiners are being “very short-sighted,” pointing out that Bitcoin has risen more than 400% since 2022, compared with gains of 177% for gold and 350% for silver.
“In other words, bitcoin crushed everything in ’23 and ’24—something people seem to forget—so much so that those other assets still haven’t caught up, even after having their best year ever and BTC being in a coma,” Balchunas said.
Adding to the cautious mood, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said in an X post on Wednesday that “every Bitcoin analyst is now bearish.”
