U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost a net $231 million on Monday, with BlackRock’s IBIT accounting for $300 million of outflows that were partly offset by other funds, including $50 million in ARKB and $35 million in GBTC, according to SoSoValue data.
The outflow of capital comes as risk appetite increases elsewhere. Wall Street’s tech rally spread to Asia on Tuesday, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rising 1% on the final trading day of the year after a rally in semiconductors helped the S&P 500 snap a five-session losing streak. The Asian benchmark is on track to post its biggest quarterly gain in nearly 17 years.
South Korea’s Kospi, which plunged 10% in a single session earlier this month, rose 2.1% to extend its lead as the world’s best-performing major benchmark index this year. Samsung is up more than 100% this quarter and SK Hynix has gained almost 240% since April. The yen fell to its weakest level against the dollar since 1986, a sign that investors are financing AI trading with yen loans.
However, Bitcoin ETFs do not participate in that capital rotation. The same spending on AI infrastructure that fueled record quarters in Seoul and Tokyo is commerce competing for dollars that might otherwise flow into bitcoin, a dynamic that has spread throughout the month’s coverage of SpaceX, Anthropic and the chip sector.
