Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $645M as Wall Street Flees Ahead of Powell’s Pivotal Speech
Wall Street's crypto darling just took a brutal hit—investors yanked a staggering $645 million from Bitcoin ETFs in a single week. The timing? Suspiciously convenient ahead of Jerome Powell's upcoming address.
The Great Retreat
Money's flying out the door faster than you can say 'hawkish rhetoric.' Institutional players are clearly spooked, dumping BTC exposure like it's 2018 all over again. They're not waiting around to hear what the Fed chair has to say—they're pricing in the pain preemptively.
Powell's Shadow Looms Large
Every word from the Fed chief now carries trillion-dollar consequences. Traders are treating his upcoming speech like a economic horoscope—searching for hints of rate cuts, inflation fears, or regulatory crackdowns. The smart money's betting he'll pour cold water on the crypto rally… again.
Wall Street's Fairweather Friendship
Remember when every major bank suddenly became a 'blockchain believer'? Turns out their conviction lasts exactly until the first whiff of volatility. This week's massive outflow proves institutions still treat crypto like a speculative side bet—not the digital gold they claim to adore. Classic finance: talk about long-term transformation, panic-sell at the first sign of trouble.
Investors derisking ahead of Powell speech
Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at CEX.IO, told Decrypt that spot Bitcoin ETFs are seeing outflows as investors "scale back risk ahead of the Jackson Hole meeting and Jerome Powell's speech on Friday."
The latest withdrawals break momentum from mid-July through early August, when bitcoin ETFs saw $4.7 billion in inflows at roughly $135 million a day.
Otychenko attributed the selling to weak job growth combined with mixed inflation data that "left the Fed in a difficult spot, leaving the markets more uncertain about the path of future rate cuts."
Net Taker Volume, which tracks whether buyers or sellers dominate exchange activity, plummeted to its “lowest point since December 2021,” indicating widespread selling pressure, he said.
The analyst noted that Bitcoin's rallies since March have followed a weakening pattern, with "each breakout weaker, with smaller price moves and lighter trading volume."
Dean Chen, analyst at Bitunix, shared similar sentiment, telling Decrypt the outflows stem from two main drivers: macro de-risking as "U.S. PPI came in hotter than expected" and issuer-level profit taking ahead of Powell's Jackson Hole speech.
He noted that BlackRock's IBIT recorded zero flow, which "tells us this is more tactical de-risking than broad institutional exit."
Konstantin Anissimov, global CEO of Currency.com, also remarked to Decrypt the outflows represent "a broad de-risking MOVE rather than a problem with any single ETF."
He pointed out that redemptions shifted from BlackRock and ARK on Monday to Fidelity, Grayscale, and Bitwise the following day, showing "investors across the board are taking some chips off the table."
Despite the substantial ETF outflows, Bitcoin's price is down just 1.5% on the day according to CoinGecko data, which Anissimov attributed to buyers using "$32 billion in stablecoin cash sitting on exchanges" to absorb the selling.
He characterized institutional sentiment as "cautious right now, but not panicked," calling the movement "short-term profit-taking" rather than a fundamental shift.
Markets now enter a critical waiting period as Powell's address approaches, with institutional flows likely to remain volatile until monetary policy clarity emerges.
