Markets · ETF flows
Fidelity and ARK Drove Last Week's $679 Million Bitcoin-Fund Outflow as BlackRock's Fund Ended Flat, Farside Data Show
Two of the 12 US spot bitcoin ETFs accounted for 86.5% of last week's net outflow, according to Farside Investors' flow compilation, while BlackRock's fund took in $1.1 million net after swinging both ways.
Last week's $678.9 million of net withdrawals from US spot bitcoin ETFs came almost entirely from two funds, Fidelity's and ARK 21Shares', while BlackRock's much larger fund ended the week flat, according to Farside Investors' daily compilation. A spot bitcoin ETF is a listed fund that holds actual bitcoin, and its "flow" is the dollar value of shares created or destroyed in a day, not the trading of existing shares between investors.
Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund lost $380.3 million and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF lost $207.2 million over Oct. 5 to 9. Together that is $587.5 million, or 86.5% of the net outflow and 84.8% of the gross outflow across the 12 funds Farside tracks, by our calculation. iShares Bitcoin Trust, BlackRock's fund, took in a net $1.1 million.
The split matters because the total has run as evidence that institutions are leaving bitcoin. The issuers' own share counts support a narrower reading: holders of two funds left, and the largest fund ended the week within 80,000 shares of where it started.
Farside is a third-party compiler. Le Coin uses its table as the flow record and checks it against the share counts the issuers publish themselves.
A net outflow means shares were destroyed. Only authorized participants, the large brokers allowed to deal directly with a fund, create or redeem shares, in fixed blocks the issuers call baskets or creation units. When investors sell more ETF shares than other investors want to buy, an authorized participant buys the excess and hands it back to the fund, which delivers bitcoin or cash out. Farside's dollar figure is, in effect, the change in shares outstanding times net asset value (NAV), the per-share value of the bitcoin the fund holds. The record does not say who sold. One large holder can produce the same number as a thousand small ones.
Fig. 1. Net flows by fund, US spot bitcoin ETFs, Oct. 5-9, 2026 (US$ millions. Source: Farside Investors flow compilation, third party, accessed 5:15 p.m. ET Oct. 12 and unchanged at 4:24 a.m. ET Oct. 13, source 1; shares of the net outflow calculated by Le Coin, source 8. Monday, Oct. 12, is not included.)
| Fund | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Week | Share of net outflow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fidelity (FBTC) | -74.5 | 0.0 | -105.1 | -197.1 | -3.6 | -380.3 | 56.0% |
| ARK 21Shares (ARKB) | -85.2 | 0.0 | -101.7 | -20.3 | 0.0 | -207.2 | 30.5% |
| Grayscale (GBTC) | 0.0 | 0.0 | -39.3 | -8.2 | 0.0 | -47.5 | 7.0% |
| Bitwise (BITB) | 0.0 | 0.0 | -27.6 | -17.7 | 0.0 | -45.3 | 6.7% |
| Grayscale Mini (BTC) | 0.0 | -11.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | -11.0 | 1.6% |
| VanEck (HODL) | 0.0 | 0.0 | -3.5 | 0.0 | 2.3 | -1.2 | 0.2% |
| BlackRock iShares (IBIT) | 69.9 | 122.0 | -207.7 | -5.5 | 22.4 | 1.1 | |
| Franklin (EZBC) | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 4.7 | 0.0 | 4.7 | |
| Morgan Stanley (MSBT) | 0.0 | 7.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 7.8 | |
| Invesco, Valkyrie, WisdomTree | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | |
| All 12 funds | -89.8 | 118.8 | -484.9 | -244.1 | 21.1 | -678.9 | 100% |
BlackRock's flat week was not a quiet one. Its fund took in $191.9 million on Monday and Tuesday, gave back $207.7 million on Wednesday, the week's worst day for the group, and ended within rounding of zero. Fidelity's fund had no inflow day at all.
The rest of the outflow was small and spread out. Grayscale's two funds and Bitwise's lost a combined $103.8 million, VanEck's lost $1.2 million, and Franklin's and Morgan Stanley's funds took in a combined $12.5 million. Without Fidelity and ARK, the other 10 funds lost a net $91.4 million, by our calculation.
Fidelity's $380.3 million was its largest weekly net outflow since the week of Jan. 20 to 23, 2026, when Farside's table shows $451.5 million, based on our sum of its daily figures by calendar week.
BlackRock's own count shows a fund that barely moved. iShares publishes a daily history of shares outstanding and NAV in its fund data download, and each count reflects positions as of the prior day. Valuing each day's change in shares at that trading day's NAV reproduces Farside's figure for the fund on every day from Oct. 2 to Oct. 9, to within $0.1 million, by our calculation.
Over Oct. 5 to 9 the iShares count fell by 80,000 shares, from 1,422,160,000 to 1,422,080,000. In dollars that is a net $1.0 million in, against Farside's $1.1 million; the gap is rounding. Shares and dollars point in slightly different directions because the fund created shares at a NAV near $48.50 on Monday and Tuesday and redeemed them near $47.20 on Wednesday. At 22.64 bitcoin per 40,000-share basket, the net change was about 45 bitcoin.
ARK's own record confirms the outflow and shows how large it was for the fund. 21Shares' daily record of units outstanding, the data behind its product page, shows 104,035,000 shares on Oct. 2 and 96,605,000 on Oct. 9. That is 7,430,000 fewer shares, or 7.1% of the fund in one week. Valued at each day's NAV, the daily changes match Farside's -$85.2 million on Monday, -$101.7 million on Wednesday and -$20.3 million on Thursday at one decimal.
ARK's redemptions were lumpy. Monday's 3,000,000 shares and Wednesday's 3,680,000 make up 90% of the week's decline; Thursday's 750,000 is the rest. At the 0.00033 bitcoin each share was entitled to on Oct. 12, the week took roughly 2,460 bitcoin out of the trust. Two large days are the pattern a few big redemptions would leave, though no issuer record names a holder.
Fidelity's figure rests on Farside alone. We found no dated issuer share count this morning. Fidelity's fund link on fidelity.com redirects to a general crypto-funds page, three other Fidelity addresses we tried returned errors, and its brokerage quote page, as archived on Oct. 2, showed a share count with no as-of date. The largest single number in this story, more than half the net outflow, is therefore unconfirmed by the issuer.
Monday's outflow came from BlackRock's fund alone. Farside's table, rechecked at 4:24 a.m. ET Oct. 13, shows a $65.4 million net outflow for Monday, Oct. 12, all of it from iShares Bitcoin Trust. Every other fund, Fidelity's and ARK's included, shows zero. We treat Monday as a separate day and have not added it to the Oct. 5 to 9 figures.
The issuer check on Monday is partial. 21Shares' count as of Oct. 12 is unchanged at 96,605,000, consistent with ARK's zero. iShares' count dated Oct. 12 still reflects Friday's trading: its 480,000-share rise matches Farside's $22.4 million Friday inflow. BlackRock's Monday redemption will appear in the count dated Oct. 13. Fidelity's zero cannot be checked.
The objection is that this is a weekly flows recap and one day can reverse it. Monday does cut against the clean reading: last week's steady fund was the only one that shrank. It does not undo a week in which two funds lost $587.5 million. Le Coin's view is that concentration is the story: "institutions are leaving bitcoin" overstates a record that shows holders of two specific funds leaving, for reasons the data do not reveal.
The tell is whether Fidelity's redemptions resume. Its outflow had slowed to $3.6 million on Friday before Monday's zero. Renewed Fidelity outflows would turn a two-fund week into a two-fund trend.
The checkable fact: if Farside's Monday figure holds, iShares' share count dated Oct. 13 should read about 1,420,680,000, 1.4 million shares below the Oct. 12 figure.
Sources
- Farside Investors, Bitcoin ETF Flow (US$m), all data (third-party flow compilation): https://farside.co.uk/bitcoin-etf-flow-all-data/ (accessed Oct. 12, 2026, 5:15 p.m. ET, and Oct. 13, 2026, 4:24 a.m. ET)
- iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF product page, data as of Oct. 12, 2026: https://www.ishares.com/us/products/333011/ishares-bitcoin-trust-etf (accessed Oct. 13, 2026, 4:24 a.m. ET)
- iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF data download, Historical sheet (daily NAV and shares outstanding): https://www.blackrock.com/varnish-api/blk-one01-product-data/product-data/api/v1/get-fund-document?appType=PRODUCT_PAGE&appSubType=ISHARES&targetSite=us-ishares&locale=en_US&portfolioId=333011&component=fundDownload&userType=individual (accessed Oct. 13, 2026, 4:25 a.m. ET)
- iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF product page, Internet Archive capture of Oct. 4, 2026, data as of Oct. 2, 2026: https://web.archive.org/web/20261004144958/https://www.ishares.com/us/products/333011/ishares-bitcoin-trust-etf (accessed Oct. 12, 2026, 5:20 p.m. ET)
- 21Shares, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF product page, data as of Oct. 12, 2026: https://www.21shares.com/en-us/product/arkb (accessed Oct. 13, 2026, 4:24 a.m. ET)
- 21Shares, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF product page, daily valuation history: https://www.21shares.com/en-us/product/arkb (accessed Oct. 13, 2026, 4:27 a.m. ET)
- Fidelity quote page, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, Internet Archive capture of Oct. 2, 2026, 11:30 p.m. ET: https://web.archive.org/web/20261003033040/https://digital.fidelity.com/prgw/digital/research/quote/dashboard/summary?symbol=FBTC (accessed Oct. 12, 2026, 5:20 p.m. ET)
- Fig. 1 and calculation note: weekly totals are sums of Farside's daily US$ million figures for Oct. 5-9; shares are each fund's total divided by the -$678.9 million net; gross outflow is the sum of negative fund totals (-$692.5 million). IBIT check: change in iShares shares outstanding between consecutive as-of dates (each reflecting the prior trading day) times NAV on the trading day; Oct. 5-9 uses as-of Oct. 5 (1,422,160,000) to as-of Oct. 12 (1,422,080,000); bitcoin per share from the basket (22.64 BTC per 40,000 shares, where 40,000 = basket amount $1,868,585.88 / NAV $46.714647). ARKB check: change in 21Shares units outstanding by valuation date times that day's NAV; bitcoin from coin entitlement 0.0003314656752 per share as of Oct. 12. Oct. 12 flows are reported separately and not added to the week. Fidelity's weekly comparison sums Farside's daily figures by Monday-to-Friday week back to Jan. 11, 2024. Data file drafts/wip/markets-2026-10-13-btc-etf-flows.fig-1-data-v2.csv
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