Institutional Exodus: Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $1.3B in Holiday ‘Stress Test’ Failure

The ticker tape says $90,000, but the institutional plumbing tells a darker story. While retail traders celebrated Bitcoin breaking a psychological barrier on New Year’s Day, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs were quietly hemorrhaging liquidity. The segment posted $1.29 billion in net outflows over the 12 sessions from Dec. 15 through Dec. 31, failing what analysts are calling a critical holiday stress test.

The Liquidity Vacuum

This wasn’t a gentle rebalancing; it was a flood. Data tracked by Farside Investors reveals a lopsided exit door: the holiday window saw roughly $2.10 billion in gross outflows against a meager $812 million in inflows. The buying pressure materialized on just two days, Dec. 17 and Dec. 30, leaving the remaining ten sessions in the red.

The result? Approximately 14,500 BTC in net sell pressure dumped into a market suffering from thin holiday order books. Price action struggled to absorb the supply, leaving Bitcoin pinned near $89,000 despite the headline-grabbing wicks above $90k.

BlackRock Blinks

For months, the market relied on BlackRock’s IBIT as the unshakeable bedrock of ETF demand. That assumption just cracked. IBIT accounted for roughly 50% of the net outflows during this period. This invalidates the comfortable "GBTC rotation" narrative. Institutional allocators aren’t just swapping legacy Grayscale shares for cheaper alternatives anymore; they are actively de-risking.

Standard Chartered noted the shift, warning that "institutional buying is arriving slower than expected."

Q1 2026 Headwinds

The broader trend is undeniable. The asset class has now bled $4.57 billion over November and December, the worst two-month stretch since the ETFs launched. This implies that corporate risk committees are overriding bullish macro narratives.

With 2026 risk budgets now resetting, the "sticky" institutional money looks surprisingly flighty. If outflows persist through January, the $90,000 support level won’t hold.