Bitcoin investors bought the dip on Tuesday — one day before they learned what was coming. US spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in $175.6 million on October 13, their biggest single day of buying since early October and the second-largest inflow of the month, according to fund-flow data. The rebound ended a brutal stretch: the funds had just endured their worst week since June, shedding $681 million and snapping a three-week inflow streak.
Fidelity’s bitcoin fund did most of the heavy lifting with about $103 million, followed by BlackRock’s at roughly $66 million and a smaller contribution from Morgan Stanley’s product. No bitcoin ETF recorded net outflows on the day, and the inflow neatly reversed a $65.4 million outflow from the previous session. Even so, October remains in the red overall, with about $276 million in net outflows across the month so far.
The CPI sting that followed
The timing is everything. The big buying arrived a day before the September inflation report showed prices rising 3.7 per cent year on year — hotter than the 3.6 per cent expected. Bitcoin dropped roughly $1,000 on the news to about $82,800, later sinking toward $81,500, as the 10-year Treasury yield jumped above 5.30 per cent. Crypto-linked equities slid alongside their underlying asset, with Coinbase, Robinhood and Strategy all falling sharply, echoing the carrier selloff sparked by SpaceX’s Starlink spectrum deal.
Traders are now pricing about a 44 per cent chance the Fed hikes rates at its October 27-28 meeting. And the flows flipped as fast as they arrived: October 14 brought $261.5 million in net outflows from the bitcoin ETFs, led by Fidelity and BlackRock redemptions, as institutions repriced rate risk, according to CoinDesk’s live coverage of the post-CPI sell-off.
What the flow data says about crypto’s mood
Look past the daily whiplash and the structural picture is intact: the ETFs have absorbed $57.2 billion in cumulative net inflows since launch, with total net assets near $107 billion — about 6.4 per cent of bitcoin’s market value. Corporate buyers are still accumulating too, with one listed treasury firm adding 2,822 coins for $235 million this week, even as US AI labs press their own funding and policy race in Washington. Spot ether funds also turned positive with $24.8 million on October 13, their first green day of the month. For now, the message is mixed: institutional demand flickered back to life for exactly one day — and hot inflation snuffed it out.
