Bitcoin ETF outflows continue as market sentiment weakens
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have now seen five straight days of net outflows, with investors pulling approximately $1.72 billion from these products over the period. According to Farside data, Friday alone saw $103.5 million leave the funds, continuing a trend that started the previous Friday. The trading week was shortened by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but that didn’t seem to stem the tide.
Bitcoin’s price currently sits around $89,160, which is interesting because it hasn’t been above $100,000 since mid-November. I think many people expected that psychological barrier to be broken by now, but here we are. Market participants often watch these ETF flows pretty closely—they’re seen as a gauge of retail investor sentiment and might give clues about where Bitcoin is headed in the coming weeks.
Market sentiment hits “extreme fear” levels
The broader crypto market sentiment has been declining recently, and the numbers show it. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index posted an “extreme fear” score of 25 in its Sunday update. That’s pretty low, honestly. Santiment, a crypto sentiment platform, described the market as being in “a phase of uncertainty” in a report on Saturday.
What Santiment said was interesting—they noted that retail traders seem to be heading for the exits while money and attention flow toward more traditional assets. But they also suggested a turnaround might be possible in the near term. “At the same time, quieter signals like supply distribution and the lack of social chatter hint that a bottom may be taking shape,” they wrote. That’s the kind of mixed message that makes this market so difficult to read.
Metals rally may be drawing attention from Bitcoin
Nik Bhatia, founder of The Bitcoin Layer, offered another perspective in an X post on Saturday. He thinks the poor sentiment around Bitcoin might be partly driven by recent surges in metal prices. “With gold practically $5,000 and silver at $100, the sentiment in Bitcoin is so poor due to being left out of the metals rally that it almost feels like post-FTX $17,000 bear vibes,” Bhatia said.
That comparison to the period after FTX collapsed is pretty stark. Bhatia added that he’s still bullish, but it’s “the painful type where fear dominates and you have to push through it.” I’ve heard that sentiment echoed by other traders recently—the feeling that you should be buying when others are fearful, but it’s emotionally difficult to actually do it.
Crypto analyst Bob Loukas weighed in too, saying that “sentiment is in the gutter and we could argue overdue some type of strong countertrend rally.” That’s a common pattern in crypto markets—when sentiment gets extremely negative, it often precedes a bounce. Whether that happens this time, well, we’ll have to wait and see.
The interesting thing here is how interconnected everything feels. Traditional assets like gold and silver performing well might be pulling money away from crypto. Or perhaps it’s just general risk aversion. It’s hard to say for sure, but the ETF outflow numbers don’t lie—money is leaving these products right now.
What happens next? If history is any guide, these periods of extreme fear sometimes mark turning points. But they can also persist for longer than anyone expects. The lack of social chatter that Santiment mentioned might actually be a positive sign—when everyone stops talking about crypto, that’s often when bottoms form. Or so the theory goes.
