Crypto ETF flows, Q3 2026: who bought, who sold

Quarter in brief: demand returned in August

US spot crypto ETFs had their best quarter of 2026 in Q3. Bitcoin funds booked roughly $6.35 billion of net creations across 64 trading days, by our sum of daily fund-level flows, against a SoSoValue headline figure of $6.34 billion. The reversal followed a Q2 in which bitcoin ETFs shed about $5 billion and bitcoin fell 14.2%. Bitcoin rose about 42.7% over Q3, which reporting citing CoinGlass described as its best third quarter since 2017, and ether gained about 71%.

Timing matters for reading the quarter. July was nearly flat at $172 million, and by July 31 year-to-date bitcoin ETF flows were still $5.29 billion negative. August brought $3.52 billion of net inflow with 16 of 21 sessions positive, cutting the year-to-date deficit to $1.77 billion. September added $2.65 billion, and a nine-session streak from September 17 to 29 worth about $3.08 billion pushed 2026 flows into positive territory on September 22. The quarter closed on a $148.7 million outflow on September 30, led by Fidelity’s FBTC.

Combined, bitcoin, ether and XRP ETFs added about $9.70 billion in Q3. Total bitcoin ETF net assets climbed from $76.29 billion on July 31 to $99.61 billion on August 31 and $107.98 billion on September 30, a 41.5% rise from the end of July driven mostly by price. On September 30 the funds held the equivalent of 6.42% of bitcoin’s market capitalization, and cumulative net inflows since the January 2024 launch stood at $57.50 billion.

Who bought: bitcoin ETF flows by fund

The table below aggregates daily net flows for the twelve US spot bitcoin ETFs by month. IBIT dominated, taking $3.09 billion in August and $1.81 billion in September after a modest $228 million in July. Fidelity’s FBTC was a net seller in July ($210 million out) before turning positive, ending the quarter with $798 million of net inflow. Grayscale’s low-fee Mini Trust (BTC) added $603 million, nearly offsetting outflows from the legacy GBTC, which lost money in every month.

The quarter also marked the arrival of a bank-sponsored contender. Morgan Stanley’s MSBT gathered $411 million, more than ARKB and BITB combined, with $251 million of that in September, including $99.0 million on September 22. VanEck’s HODL was the largest outflow outside Grayscale at $108 million.

Who sold: GBTC, rotation and risk-off sessions

Selling was concentrated in two places. The first is structural: GBTC, which still charges a higher fee than its peers, posted net redemptions of $757 million, and in July alone its outflows exceeded the entire complex’s net intake. The second is tactical. Even large holders sold into weakness on specific days, and IBIT itself had 21 outflow sessions over the quarter.

• July 13: $424.7 million out, with FBTC ($245.6 million) and IBIT ($185.5 million) leading.
• September 15 and 16: $746.3 million out over two sessions, the quarter’s worst stretch; September 15 alone saw $450.3 million leave, including $214.8 million from FBTC.
• September 10: $282.6 million out, with ARKB redeeming $164.3 million.
• September 30: $148.7 million out on the final day of the quarter, ending the nine-day streak.

Inflow days were larger than outflow days. September 21 brought $999.0 million, the biggest session of the quarter and, per The Block, the ninth-largest since January 2024; IBIT took $381.4 million, ARKB $289.1 million and FBTC $238.8 million. September 3 added $730.9 million and August 20 added $606.3 million, of which IBIT took $503.0 million. The week of September 21 to 25 delivered about $2.39 billion, the largest weekly total since October 2025.

Market share: one issuer holds most of the bitcoin

Measured by bitcoin held rather than dollar AUM, which removes the effect of price moves, the US spot complex held 1,290,304 BTC on October 2, 2026, worth about $111.1 billion at that day’s price. That is roughly 79,000 BTC more than the 1,211,322 BTC reported for June 30. BlackRock’s IBIT alone held 801,033 BTC.

The flow and stock pictures diverge in one respect. Grayscale still holds more bitcoin than Fidelity because of GBTC’s legacy base, but it was a net loser of assets in Q3 while Fidelity gained. Morgan Stanley, with under 1% of holdings, captured 6.5% of the quarter’s net inflow, a ratio no other issuer matched.

Ether, XRP and SOL funds

Spot ether ETFs added $365.2 million in July, $1.85 billion in August and $832.4 million in September, about $3.05 billion for the quarter. August was the category’s strongest month since August 2025, and BlackRock’s ETHA took roughly $1.02 billion of a $1.42 billion inflow streak from August 17 to 27. Ether ETF net assets rose from $10.23 billion on July 31 to $17.60 billion on September 30, equal to 5.37% of ether’s market capitalization, with cumulative net inflows of $13.90 billion. BlackRock’s staked ether fund, ETHB, which launched before the quarter, posted creations during the period alongside ETHA.

XRP ETFs added $308 million in Q3, lifting cumulative net inflows to $1.79 billion. SOL ETFs drew $272 million in September, including a record $86.7 million on September 25, and held about $1.5 billion in assets by September 26. Bitwise’s BSOL accounted for about 76% of SOL ETF cumulative inflows ($1.22 billion of $1.60 billion). A Zcash ETF also drew $246 million in September.

Staking products and Q2 13F holders

Staking moved further into the ETF wrapper during the quarter. Canary launched the Canary Staked TRX ETF (TRXS) on Cboe on September 9, staking most of its TRX and retaining rewards in net asset value. Bitwise launched the first US spot NEAR product (NRR) on NYSE Arca on September 29, with a 0.75% fee and in-fund staking at an approximately 5% annualized rate.

The most recent 13F filings, covering June 30, showed institutional demand held up through the Q2 drawdown. Reported institutional holdings rose 7.5% to 535,723 BTC, lifting the institutional share of ETF-held bitcoin to a record 44.2% from 38.4% at the end of Q1, while the number of reporting firms fell to about 1,900. Morgan Stanley reported about 16.5 million IBIT shares (up 23%) and JPMorgan 10.4 million (up from 8.3 million). Jane Street disclosed $990 million across spot bitcoin ETFs, $828 million of it in IBIT, after cutting its IBIT stake by about 71% in Q1. Q3 13F filings are due by mid-November and will show whether the August and September inflows came from advisers and institutions or from retail and short-term traders.

Methodology

Period: July 1 to September 30, 2026 (64 US trading days). Fund-level bitcoin ETF flows are daily net creations and redemptions in US$ millions from the TFTC monthly Bitcoin ETF Flows archive, which follows the Farside Investors format. We summed daily rows by fund and month in Python. Our fund-level sums ($172.8 million, $3,530.0 million and $2,647.7 million) differ from SoSoValue’s monthly headline figures ($172 million, $3.52 billion and $2.65 billion) by under $10 million because of rounding and timing differences on five days between the fund columns and the stated daily totals. Shares of Q3 net flow are each fund’s net flow divided by the $6,350.5 million total; negative shares mean net redemptions. Ether, XRP and SOL flows, net assets, cumulative inflows and market capitalization ratios are SoSoValue figures as reported by Cointelegraph, The Block, Coingabbar and KuCoin/Odaily. The July ether figure is reported directly and agrees with the quarterly total to within $3 million.

Market share uses bitcoin held per fund from Bitbo as of October 2, 2026, two trading days after quarter end, because a consistent September 30 fund-level snapshot was not available; the October 1 to 2 flows were small relative to holdings. Grayscale combines GBTC and the BTC Mini Trust. The change in ETF-held bitcoin compares Bitbo’s October 2 total with the June 30 total cited in Q2 13F coverage, and the two sources may define the fund universe slightly differently. 13F data is a long-only snapshot that excludes derivatives and hedges, and many holders do not file. Bar values are scaled to the largest bar. Not investment advice.

Sources

• TFTC Bitcoin ETF Flows archive, July 2026, August 2026 and September 2026 (as of September 30, 2026)
• Cointelegraph: bitcoin ETFs $6.34 billion Q3 inflows, ether, XRP, SOL flows (SoSoValue) (as of October 1, 2026)
• The Block: spot bitcoin ETFs log September inflows, ether ETF monthly flows (as of October 2, 2026)
• The Block: bitcoin ETFs turn positive for 2026 with $2.4 billion weekly inflow (as of September 26, 2026)
• KuCoin/Odaily: bitcoin spot ETF net assets and cumulative inflows (SoSoValue) and ether spot ETF equivalent (as of September 30, 2026)
• KuCoin: bitcoin ETFs record strongest month of 2026 in August (month-end AUM, YTD flows) (as of August 31, 2026)
• Coingabbar: crypto ETF flows July 2026 (SoSoValue) (as of July 31, 2026)
• Bitbo: US bitcoin ETF holdings by fund (as of October 2, 2026)
• Crypto Briefing: Q2 2026 13F institutional bitcoin ETF holdings and TFTC: Jane Street Q2 13F (as of June 30, 2026)
• CoinDesk: Canary staked TRX ETF launch and The Cryptonomist: Bitwise NEAR ETF launch (as of September 29, 2026)