Bold Directional Bets Propel Bitcoin ETFs to Over $5 Billion in Inflows

U.S. spot-bitcoin exchange-traded funds have pulled in more than $5.61 billion since April 1, according to SoSoValue, as BTC climbed from $75 K to the $100 K region.

Numbers at a glance

April inflow: $2.97 billion
May 1-17 inflow: $2.64 billion
Total since launch (Jan 2024): $41 billion+

Why this isn’t your typical cash-and-carry

Institutions once treated these ETFs as fuel for “cash-and-carry” arbitrage—long the fund, short CME futures, harvest the basis, ignore price direction. If that were the story today, CME short interest would be swelling.

Instead, CFTC Commitment of Traders data show leveraged funds cutting net shorts to 14,139 contracts from 17,141 in early April. A spike in shorts would have flagged classic arbitrage; a drop points to outright long conviction.

“Because futures shorts haven’t ballooned, the fresh ETF flows look like clean directional bets,” Options Insight founder Imran Lakha noted on Deribit.

The takeaway

Big players appear to be using spot ETFs less as a hedged basis trade and more as a straight proxy for bullish exposure to bitcoin’s next leg higher.

BTC was last quoted near $102,700 (CoinDesk) as ETF demand shows no sign of cooling.