Institutional ETF flows flipped firmly positive midweek, but the underlying picture in the Bitcoin market is more complicated. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust led the inflow reversal on May 15, pulling in $144 million as the group recorded $131.3 million in net inflows overall. That means BlackRock alone accounted for more than the full net total. While that broke a recent streak of ETF withdrawals, it also shows the rebound was not broad-based — the turnaround came from one issuer, not a surge in demand across the board.
The tension is what followed. Even as ETF demand turned positive again, Bitcoin’s spot price failed to reclaim a key pivot level identified in the market brief. The supporting structure remains fragile, and the near-term chart still showed Bitcoin below that earlier range. In effect, fund buying improved faster than spot price action. That divergence is the story: IBIT drove the May 15 reversal, but strong flows still did not produce an immediate, near-term rally in Bitcoin’s price. For now, the ETF market and underlying spot action are moving on separate tracks.