US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $171 million in outflows on Thursday, marking their largest single-day withdrawal since March 3, when redemptions reached $348 million.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led the outflows with $41 million, followed by Fidelity Investments’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) at $32 million. The ARK Invest and 21Shares joint ETF (ARKB) saw $30.5 million in outflows, while Grayscale Investments’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) recorded $24 million in redemptions, according to data from Farside Investors.
The pullback comes after a stretch of steady demand, with Bitcoin ETFs attracting $1.36 billion in inflows so far in March and on pace for their first month of net gains since October 2025, when they brought in $3.42 billion, based on figures from Sosovalue.
US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs are widely viewed as a barometer of institutional interest in Bitcoin, which dropped below the $70,000 level on Thursday. The cryptocurrency has declined 4.7% over the past week and was trading around $67,780 at the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap.
Despite the recent outflows, Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said Bitcoin ETFs are just “one good day away” from erasing their year-to-date losses. He also praised the funds for showing “incredible fortitude” despite Bitcoin’s 46% drop from its $126,198 all-time high in October 2025.
“For context, when gold fell 40% over a short period about a decade ago, roughly one-third of investors exited,” Balchunas noted in a post on X.
Investors wary of potential weekend escalation
The recent sell-off in Bitcoin ETFs comes amid reports that the US Department of War is deploying thousands of troops to the Middle East, according to sources cited by Reuters.
On Thursday, Donald Trump announced a 10-day extension of a ceasefire covering Iranian energy infrastructure, pushing the deadline to April 6, and pointed to ongoing constructive negotiations.
Despite the ceasefire extension, market participants remain concerned about a potential surprise escalation over the weekend, said Kyle Rodda, senior financial analyst at Capital.com. He added:
“Amidst the headline risk and he-said, she-said games about whether negotiations between the US and Iran are taking place, the US is moving assets and personnel towards the Middle East to prepare for what looks like a limited ground invasion.”
Investors are jittery about any potential escalation after being caught off guard by the initial US and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, which occurred in the middle of constructive negotiations, Rodda added.
