IBIT investors chose to do absolutely nothing on Monday as the rest of the market panicked.
After waking up to chaos across the markets on Monday, IBIT and ARKB ETF investors chose to calmly wait out the flush, registering zero inflows or outflows on the day.
The Japanese NIKKEI fell over 10% on August 5, taking the NASDAQ down 4.5% with it and sending the volatility index (VIX) up 135% on the day, numbers associated with mass panic in traditional markets.
Meanwhile in crypto, BTC dropped by nearly 20%, ETH and SOL fell by 27%, and many altcoins dropped by 50% or more over the weekend.
In spite of the fear, IBIT and ARKB registered zero net flows on the day while traditional and crypto markets attempted to navigate the frenzy. Investors who remained unswayed or even bought the dip on Monday were rewarded, as BTC rallied as much as 15% to $57,500 from Sunday night’s low of 49,800.
Flows for all BTC ETFs on Monday ended up being net negative at $168 million, with Grayscale’s GBTC seeing the largest outflows by a small margin.
The lack of reaction to high volatility in a risk asset such as BTC indicates that IBIT and ARKB have attracted a calm and mature investor base, or as crypto natives like to call them, ‘diamond hands.’ IBIT and ARKB also recorded zero net flows on Tuesday, and as they continue to watch the market action play out, the other ETFs recorded another negative day with $148 million in outflows.
BlackRock’s IBIT routinely sees the largest volumes amongst all of the BTC ETFs and has attracted $20 billion in inflows since ETFs went live in January, accounting for more than 50% of the $36 billion in cumulative inflows. Fidelity, Bitwise, and Ark are the only other BTC custodians to process over $1 billion in net inflows.
