Crypto
Bitcoin ETFs Took In $527 Million on Monday, IBIT's Best Day in a Year, While Ether ETFs Lost $103 Million for a Fourth Day. Zcash Jumped 11% on Its Upgrade Date
US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $526.7 million on October 19, according to Farside, with BlackRock's IBIT taking in $665.2 million, its largest day since October 2025, while Fidelity's FBTC lost $83.6 million and Grayscale's GBTC $54.9 million. Ether ETFs lost $103.3 million the same day, a fourth consecutive outflow. Bitcoin was at $82,926 at 05:00 UTC on October 21, up 1.1% in 24 hours, ether at $2,449, and Zcash rose 11% to about $1,260 after developers set the activation height for the NU7 upgrade.
The two largest crypto ETF categories are moving in opposite directions, and the gap widened on Monday. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $526.7 million on October 19, according to Farside Investors and SoSoValue, the largest daily inflow since September; BlackRock's IBIT alone attracted $665.2 million, its biggest day since October 7, 2025, while Fidelity's FBTC saw $83.6 million leave and Grayscale's GBTC $54.9 million. Even after that, the category is about $88 million in net outflows for October. The spot ether ETFs lost $103.3 million on the same day, a fourth straight session of redemptions after the $320.1 million withdrawn in the week to October 16, most of it from a single fund.
Prices followed the flows with a lag. Bitcoin, which had slipped to $81,400 on Tuesday morning as Korean chip stocks fell, was at $82,926 at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, up 1.1% in 24 hours, with a range of $81,322 to $83,439 and $1.09 billion of Binance spot volume; the IBIT ETF had closed up 0.9% at $46.71. Ether traded down to $2,378 on Tuesday, within $60 of its October lows, and recovered to $2,449, up 1.6%. XRP rose 2.4% to $1.337, Dogecoin 2.7% and BNB 1.6%; Solana was little changed at $106. The recovery coincided with the after-hours jump in SpaceX and Super Micro and a 1% rise in Nasdaq 100 futures.
The day's largest move among the majors was Zcash, up 9.6% to $1,264 on Binance with $216 million of volume and a high of $1,296.45 in the 00:45 UTC candle, after developers set the mainnet activation height for NU7, the network upgrade that cuts the block time from 75 to 25 seconds and sends 60% of transaction fees into a reserve; CoinDesk put the gain at 11%. Smaller names moved more: Compound rose 27% at one point to $29.30 with no announcement behind it and settled near $26; IOST rose 45% to $0.00125 on the completion of its v4.0.0 mainnet upgrade; Worldcoin gained 8%.
Hashdex, in a note to CoinDesk, offered the long view: bitcoin's current bear phase had lasted 359 days as of September 30, against 361, 377 and 411 days for the previous three since 2011, and short-term holders, the group most likely to sell a dip, own 16% of the supply, the lowest share since January 2023. The near view is simpler. Bitcoin needs to reclaim $84,000 before the Federal Reserve meets on October 27 and 28 to show the October lows were a floor, and ether needs its ETF holders to stop selling. Monday's $527 million says the first is possible; four days of ether outflows say the second has not started.