Bitcoin’s weekend was a classic macro hit-and-run. On Friday, tariff threats to China sliced risky assets and pushed BTC through $110,000, liquidating around $7 billion in crypto positions as leverage unwound into a thin band.
The tone softened on Sunday evening and Monday as Trump posted a calming message on China, and US markets stabilized as Chinese ADRs bounced. BTC followed with a morning pop, repeating some of the slump.
The main question arising from this weekend’s volatility is whether the US spot ETF complex, led by BlackRock’s IBIT, acted as a shock absorber that kept the Bitcoin price from falling deeper into a hole.
A good place to start is the creations and redemptions tape. Early last week, US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a blockbuster run, seeing around $1.21 billion in net inflows on October 6 alone, the biggest single-day print in months.
That binge came before the headlines and showed that cash was already queuing and flowing into the packaged BTC exposure. Even if you ignore the more light-hearted aggregators, the mainstream reporting presented the same basic picture: a wave of money had entered the wrapping complex in the days leading up to the macro shock.
Then came the rinse. If ETFs were brittle, you’d expect a cascade of same-day redemptions on Friday. That didn’t happen. Farside’s daily table shows total US spot BTC ETF flows ending Friday, October 10, with just $4.5 million in outflows.
Under the hood, however, IBIT raked in $74.2 million, while most peers leaked. That pattern is important because it shows that the ETF market was not trading in unison on the stress day. Some holders asked for money back, but the largest fund created shares and took coins into custody. In a session defined by forced sellers and shallow books, one stable intake valve can be enough to dull the edge of a cascade.
The split widened on Monday, October 13. The table shows a much larger cohort outflow, $326.4 million. Once again, IBIT was a net buyer, adding $60.4 million. Comparing that to price action gives you a clearer picture: the market didn’t recover because ETF buyers charged across the board.
It stabilized while the largest product continued to take coins, and others bled. That mix doesn’t make IBIT a magic floor, but it does explain why the weekend breakout failed to evolve into a quick break below $100,000 as the headlines cooled.
To understand those pictures, look back to the beginning of the week. Between October 6 and 8, spot ETFs absorbed large inflows: hundreds of millions of dollars per day, including one record inflow of more than $1.2 billion.
These creations added new BTC to custodians, giving funds a cushion of new shares heading into the sell-off. When volatility hit, investors in these products did not rush to buy their shares, and IBIT, the fund with the strongest primary market activity, continued to pick up demand.
From a structural perspective, ETF redemptions do not lead to immediate selling on exchanges. Authorized participants handle the process by exchanging baskets and hedging exposure through futures and spot markets.
On October 10, small net outflows across all funds likely created some short-term selling pressure as APs balanced their books, but IBIT inflows worked in the opposite direction. The result was a neutral street position instead of one-sided hedging, which helped stabilize Bitcoin once broader market sentiment improved.
There are several conclusions we can draw from this.
First, we now know that the buyer base is segmented. When the screens turn red, not every ETF holder behaves the same. On both October 10 and 13, IBIT had net creations while peers posted redemptions. That equates to a holder mix that tolerates withdrawals within the largest vehicle with the lowest fees, while smaller funds see faster churn.
For the price, the only thing that matters is the net effect on the primary market. On the worst day, the net outflow of the cohort was trivial in magnitude and partially offset by IBIT intake.
Second, the pre-shock inflow changes the starting point. The rise in early October meant that custodians were already sitting on newly created shares on Friday.
That share acts as ballast. Holders must choose to redeem to translate the stress into primary market sales. The table shows that many did not; where they did, IBIT’s creations blunted the flow.
Third, derivatives were still driving the story. The $7 billion flush came from forced position cuts, not ETF panic.
The ETF tape added texture: a small net negative on Friday, a larger net negative on Monday and continued cross-flow at IBIT.
That pattern helps explain why Bitcoin didn’t fall through $100,000 when the macro shock hit, and why the market had room to bounce once the policy tone cooled.
