Bitcoin’s attempts to break higher stalled several times near $82,000 over the past week, a pattern that appears linked in part to developments on the US ETF front.
Spot Ethereum ETFs fared worse: they did not post a single positive trading day last week and finished with significant net outflows.
BTC ETFs Suffered Heavy Outflows
In the prior business week ending May 6, spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted more than $620 million in net inflows, extending a six-week streak of positive net flows. However, that momentum reversed over the past five trading days. According to data from SoSoValue, investors withdrew roughly $1 billion in total, trimming cumulative net inflows from $59.34 billion to $58.34 billion.
Breaking the numbers down, May 13 was the worst day with $635 million in net outflows, followed by $290 million on May 15 and $233 million on May 12. The remaining two trading days showed modest net inflows: $28.3 million on Monday and $131.31 million on Thursday.
As a result, this week became the funds’ weakest since late January, when large redemptions also occurred.
During the same period, Bitcoin attempted to break above the upper boundary of its consolidation range on three occasions but was rejected each time. The most recent failure occurred on Thursday after the CLARITY Act passed the Senate Banking Committee; BTC slid from around $82,000 to below $78,000 by Friday and into Saturday.
Ethereum ETFs Also in the Red
Spot Ethereum ETFs saw persistent outflows across every trading day last week. Withdrawals included $16.9 million on Monday, $130.62 million on Tuesday, $36.3 million on Wednesday, $5.65 million on Thursday, and $65.65 million on Friday.
That pattern produced weekly net outflows of about $255 million, the largest weekly withdrawal since late January. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart highlighted the divergence between Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF interest, noting that Ethereum funds have seen far less investor demand than Bitcoin ETFs over recent months.
Wrote yesterday about the Ethereum ETFs — They have stemmed their outflows and seen some inflows over the last couple months but nowhere near the level of interest that the Bitcoin ETFs have seen over the same time period. Peak was ~$15 billion cumulative net inflows in October pic.twitter.com/cE4R4xXoNo
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) May 15, 2026
Ethereum’s price was also capped near $2,400 earlier in the week and has since retreated below $2,200.
By contrast, ETFs tracking Solana (SOL) and Ripple (XRP) closed the week without any down days. Ripple ETFs recorded their strongest week since December, and Solana funds showed similar improvement.