The largest net withdrawals occurred during the two most recent market downturns, with $6.9 billion between October 2025 and February 2026 and $8.2 billion during the May-June decline. DWF Labs does not distinguish between institutional and retail investors and therefore cannot identify who drove the selling. The firm estimates that roughly one-fifth of flows may have involved hedging by buying ETF shares while betting against Bitcoin through CME futures. According to CoinShares, professional investors reduced their exposure to Bitcoin ETFs by 17% in the first quarter of 2026, with hedge funds and brokerages accounting for 96% of the reduction while banks increased their holdings. DWF Labs counted around three annual sell-offs of at least 15% since the ETFs launched in 2024, compared with four in 2022-2023 and eight in 2021, while the median loss reached 21.3%, slightly above the 19.4% recorded in 2022-2023.
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