ETF Inflows Fueling the Rally

The amount of capital being poured into Bitcoin ETFs has been rising quickly during the second half of April. This could be happening for a few reasons. Some traders may feel more relaxed now that the fear around new tariffs has calmed down. Others may be trying to ride the wave of crypto’s recent bounce back. Either way, it’s a strong signal that investor interest is heating up again as we move into May.

In fact, there has only been one day with more money going out than coming in over the last 19 calendar days. That one day (April 16th) had a small net outflow of about -$174,500. Since then, we’ve now seen seven straight stock market days where more money came into Bitcoin ETFs than left them.

To break it down, the past seven trading days have brought in around $3.6B in total net inflows. That works out to roughly $514M per day being added to Bitcoin-related ETFs since mid-April. These are huge numbers, and they often help push prices up. Why? Because inflows usually mean that ETFs are buying more Bitcoin to back the shares they’re selling to investors. That buying activity adds demand, which can help drive the price higher, especially when it happens steadily over several days.

At the same time, we’re seeing something unusual. Trading volume has actually been on the decline over the past week. In fact, there’s a bit of a bearish divergence forming due to prices rising, but volume moving the opposite direction. This pattern usually suggests a rally might be getting weaker, since it’s not being supported by strong activity from traders.

But on the other end of that argument, bulls are quick to point out that these aren’t normal conditions. April has been full of big events, like shifting tariff policies, rising tension between countries, and instability and shifting confidence in stock & crypto markets based on the latest words coming out of President Trump's mouth.

But these are of course unique circumstances, in a month that has been flipped upside down by tariff policy changes and trade/information wars that have spiraled traders' confidence in markets.

It’s also important to mention that a lot of these recent inflows have come from one ETF in particular: the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). According to our data, IBIT had its second highest single-day inflow in its short history. The only time it saw more money come in was back in early November, directly after Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, when excitement about Bitcoin surged across all ETFs.

So why is IBIT getting so much of the action now? A few reasons stand out. First, it’s backed by BlackRock, one of the world’s largest and most trusted financial firms. Many big investors feel more confident putting their money into a fund managed by a company with a strong reputation, and one that has been very vocal about their confidence in Bitcoin and crypto.

Second, IBIT has quickly built a strong track record of deep liquidity, meaning investors can easily buy and sell without large price changes. This helps reduce risk for big trades. Lastly, it’s been one of the most talked-about ETFs in financial media and on social platforms, which brings more attention and trust from both retail and institutional investors.

Our data does confirm that this reported amount is correct, as IBIT's data (shown in the chart below) had its second highest day of inflows in its brief history. The only other higher day was when there was a surge in inflows from all ETF's on November 6th and 7th, right after Donald Trump was elected as the next US president.

You can track at any time with our completely free, newly released dashboard. Make sure to hit the Refresh button on each respective chart (see below) any time you have freshly opened the page again. SanQueries dashboards like these do require manual reloading of the data in order to ensure the most recent data is loaded.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the post are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product.