Bitcoin ETFs Plunge 95.6% as Wintermute Moves $90M in BTC

• U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $23.2 million on October 20, down 95.6% from the $526.7 million they drew one session earlier
• Three new wallets pulled 1,090 BTC, worth about $90.38 million, from market maker Wintermute between October 20 and 21, a week after a 1,162 BTC withdrawal
• Bitcoin trades near $83,192 as CryptoQuant warns that a deeper drop in equities could drag the coin into a correction

Bitcoin ETF inflows fell 95.6% on Tuesday, October 20, as U.S. spot Bitcoin funds took in only $23.2 million after a $526.7 million haul one session earlier. Around the same time, a Wintermute Bitcoin transfer sent 1,090 BTC, worth about $90.38 million, into three brand-new wallets, and the move looks like fresh Bitcoin whale accumulation even as fund demand cools.

As COINOTAG revealed in its ETF flow report, BlackRock’s IBIT drove most of the slowdown, and the wider group of U.S. crypto ETFs flipped to an $11.3 million net outflow. At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $83,192.70, so any price prediction for the rest of October now leans on two questions: will ETF buyers come back, and could a BTC market correction start if stocks keep sliding?

Also Read: JPMorgan Sees Bitcoin Beating Stocks and Gold as Michael Saylor Warns Robots Will Devalue Goods Making BTC Valuable

Bitcoin ETF Inflows Slow as Whale Accumulation Raises Questions

The two signals point in different directions right now. Bitcoin ETF inflows shrank to a trickle on Tuesday, and yet someone with deep pockets keeps pulling coins off a market maker’s books and parking them in new addresses. That split leaves a lot of holders unsure what the next big move looks like, and it also explains why traders read every Wintermute Bitcoin transfer so carefully at the moment.

The ETF numbers come from the daily creation and redemption filings that issuers publish after the U.S. close, and the wallet data comes from public blockchain records, so anyone can check them. What nobody can check yet is who sits behind the Bitcoin whale accumulation, or whether ETF buyers simply took a one-day break. The answer to those two questions will likely shape any Bitcoin price prediction for November too. Institutional demand also reaches well beyond U.S. funds right now, as a major bank expands crypto trading in the UAE and France eyes a stablecoin tax.

How Bitcoin ETF Inflows Dropped 95.6% In One Session

Bitcoin ETF inflows stayed positive on October 20 for a second straight day, but only just. The 12 U.S. spot Bitcoin funds took in $23.2 million, against $526.7 million on Monday, October 19. That is the 95.6% plunge in the headline, and it all happened in a single trading day.

The full group of U.S. digital asset ETFs, which covers funds tracking Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Hyperliquid and Zcash, swung from a $406.3 million net inflow on Monday to an $11.3 million net outflow on Tuesday. A net outflow simply means investors redeemed more shares than they created that day, so more money left the funds than came in.

IBIT Carried Monday And Then Cooled Off

BlackRock‘s IBIT set the pace on Monday and Tuesday. The fund drew $665.2 million on October 19 alone, more than the entire five-asset group total, and then took in $29.9 million on Tuesday. It still led every fund that day, but its intake dropped by roughly $635 million in 24 hours, and that one change accounts for most of the slowdown in Bitcoin ETF inflows.

The other Bitcoin funds barely moved. Fidelity’s FBTC added $3.6 million, Bitwise’s BITB lost $10.3 million, and the rest of the products saw no material flows at all.

Bitcoin Price Prediction For 2027 Points To A Weaker Second Half

Where those flows go from here also matters for the longer-term outlook. As CoinCodex shows in its Bitcoin price prediction for 2027, its model expects BTC to trade between $55,811 and $89,364 next year, with an average annualized price of $70,607. The forecast puts the strongest month in February, at up to $89,364, and then sees prices slide through the second half of the year, with December averaging $57,619. Models like this one update as new price data comes in, so the next few weeks of ETF flows will also shape how that 2027 outlook looks.

Ether, Solana And Hyperliquid Funds Kept Bleeding

Ethereum ETFs lost $26.1 million, their fifth straight day of withdrawals since October 14, and BlackRock’s ETHA shed $33 million on its own. Solana products extended a 12-session losing streak with a $2.6 million outflow, all of it from Grayscale’s GSOL. Hyperliquid funds gave up $7.4 million, and Zcash was the only one of the five assets to bring in new money, with $1.6 million going into Grayscale’s ZCSH. Together, the four non-Bitcoin asset classes shed $34.5 million. Next to those losses, Tuesday’s small Bitcoin ETF inflows still looked like one of the better results in the group.

October Still Runs A Deficit

The two-day bounce has not fixed the month. Tracking services Farside and Trader T put cumulative net outflows from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs at $65.1 million since October 1, even after Tuesday’s print. Year to date, the 12 funds still show a net inflow of $865.3 million.

So Monday’s big number and Tuesday’s small one together have only trimmed the October gap. With just over a week left in the month, Bitcoin ETF inflows need a few more strong sessions to end October in the green, and without them the products head into November after a second weak month. For anyone holding Bitcoin through a fund, the swing from a $526.7 million day to a $23.2 million day shows how fast the mood around these products can change, and also how much a single issuer matters.

What Analysts Say About ETF Demand

Some analysts read Monday’s IBIT haul as proof that big money still wants exposure, even with prices stuck in a range. In its report on the $665.2 million day, The Block spoke with an analyst who sees steady interest from institutions.

Dominick John, an analyst at Zeus Research, said:

“BlackRock’s inflows signal resilient institutional demand despite macro headwinds and bitcoin’s choppy price action.”

That view fits a wider shift, as new reports show wealthy investors putting more into crypto as institutions move toward bigger allocations. Tuesday’s dip in Bitcoin ETF inflows does not undo that trend on its own, since one session rarely says much about long-term demand. It does show that the buying comes in bursts, and that the bursts lean heavily on one fund.

Also Read: Bitcoin Whales Hit Record 20,338 Wallets as US Becomes Net Importer of BTC in 2026

Wintermute Bitcoin Transfer Sends 1,090 BTC To Fresh Wallets

The second big story of the day played out on-chain. Three new wallets received 1,090 BTC, worth about $90.38 million, from crypto market maker Wintermute between October 20 and 21. This Bitcoin transfer came only one week after a similar one, and the two moves together have traders talking about whale accumulation again.

How The Coins Moved

According to Bitcoin.com News, which tracked the 1,090 BTC withdrawal through data from on-chain tracker Lookonchain, each of the three addresses first got a tiny test deposit of 0.0002 to 0.0003 BTC. The first two wallets then received their main payments in the same block at 21:30 UTC on October 20, and the third one filled up just after midnight. The final balances came to 364.09 BTC, 363.64 BTC and 362.04 BTC.

Test deposits followed by large payments into empty wallets usually point to a buyer who finished an over-the-counter purchase and wants the coins in cold storage, away from exchanges. That is why many traders treat this Wintermute Bitcoin transfer as Bitcoin whale accumulation and not as selling. Nobody has identified the buyer, though, and no one has said publicly who controls the wallets.

The Second Large Withdrawal In Seven Days

On October 14, five newly created wallets received 1,162 BTC, about $96.77 million, from Wintermute over 12 hours. Put together, the two batches moved roughly 2,252 BTC, or about $187 million, into fresh addresses within a week. A repeat Wintermute Bitcoin transfer of this size, seven days apart, looks more like a planned buying program than a one-off trade.

Why Bitcoin Whale Accumulation Matters Right Now

Large holders tend to move the market more than anyone else, and right now their balances keep growing. In its report on the first mystery buyer, Bitcoin.com News said CryptoQuant data showed whales holding 3.03 million BTC, the highest level since November 21, 2025, with exchange and mining pool addresses left out of the count. That is also why on-chain trackers flag each new Wintermute Bitcoin transfer within hours.

Whales Rebuild From The December Low

Whale balances bottomed near 2.87 million BTC in December 2025, and the last bull market peak sat around 3.23 million BTC, per the same report. Monthly growth in whale balances has also reached its fastest pace since February. Seen that way, the latest Wintermute Bitcoin transfer adds to a pattern of Bitcoin whale accumulation that started well before this week.

Big holders also lean more on borrowing these days. In September, stablecoin borrowing by users posting more than $10 million in BTC as collateral rose 83.30%, and borrowing by retail users with less than $100,000 fell 17.20%. Stablecoin use keeps climbing on other chains as well, with TRON averaging 4.41 million daily active accounts as Justin Sun targets a 2027 stablecoin lead.

Whale Wallets Turn Buyers As Exchange Supply Shrinks

Newer data points the same way. Benzinga reports in its whale coverage, citing CryptoQuant figures, that the 60-day net accumulation of wallets holding 1,000 to 10,000 BTC flipped from minus 62,600 BTC to plus 5,230 BTC. That cohort went from selling to buying, and it did so right as the second Wintermute withdrawal landed.

Coins on trading venues keep thinning out as well. As COINOTAG shows in its exchange reserve report, Bitcoin held on exchanges slipped to about 2.68 million BTC on October 3, a three-year low and roughly half a million coins below the early 2024 peak near 3.2 million BTC. Fewer coins on exchanges means less supply ready to sell, but Benzinga also counted 8,428 BTC in net weekly inflows to exchanges, so some holders still send coins to trade. Buying power is building up too, since stablecoin reserves on the largest crypto exchange climbed from about $790 million to $1.76 billion.

Not Every Large Holder Is Buying

The picture is not one-sided. Pluang data shows selling activity at 66% on its platform, and the typical holding time for Bitcoin there still sits at 112 days. Bitcoin.com News also pointed out that Bitcoin on one major U.S. exchange traded about $115 below two large offshore venues, a gap that usually signals heavier selling from U.S. spot traders, and that some older wallets moved coins at the same time. So Bitcoin whale accumulation shows up clearly on-chain, but it competes with steady supply from other big holders.

Bitcoin Price Today And The Levels Traders Watch

Bitcoin trades at $83,192.70, up 2.07% over 24 hours, with a market cap of about $1.67 trillion and $26.45 billion in daily trading volume. The widget below sums up where the coin stands right now, along with this week’s Bitcoin ETF inflows and the two Wintermute withdrawals.

Support, Resistance And Leverage

COINOTAG’s own market data puts support at $80,902 and resistance at $84,186, and the outlet called $84,186 the level to break. Perpetual funding sits at 0.0071%, open interest at $16.7 billion, and 59.3% of accounts are long, for a long/short ratio of 1.46. The Fear & Greed Index reads 63, which counts as greed.

That means traders have leaned into the move with leverage, and leverage cuts in two directions. Short sellers lost $45 million in liquidations when Bitcoin touched $83,000 on October 20, Bitcoin.com News reported, and the same mechanics could hit longs fast in a Bitcoin market correction. Retail access to leverage keeps getting wider too, as Robinhood now targets US crypto traders with 10x leverage and AI-powered trading.

Bitcoin Price Prediction Based On The Latest Data

No single Bitcoin price prediction can settle what happens from here, but the market data gives a few clear markers. CryptoQuant identifies support near the 365-day moving average, around $80,000, and Bitcoin has been defending an ETF cost basis near $81,500, according to Bitcoin.com News. On the prediction market Kalshi, traders priced Bitcoin at about $83,503 for the end of 2026 in mid-October.

Read together, a Bitcoin price prediction built on these levels has a floor near $80,000 to $81,500 and a ceiling at $84,186 for now. Bitcoin has closed above $80,000 for 33 days in a row, per exchange data cited by Bitcoin.com News, so the floor has held for over a month. A daily close above $84,186 would clear the strongest barrier on COINOTAG’s chart, and a break below $80,000 would push many fund buyers under their cost basis, which is the kind of move that often turns into a Bitcoin market correction.

What The Kalshi Pricing Suggests

The Kalshi figure sits almost exactly at today’s price. That suggests traders on the platform do not expect a big year-end breakout, and any Bitcoin price prediction above $90,000 still needs a fresh catalyst, most likely a return of strong Bitcoin ETF inflows and more buying from large wallets.

What A September Bitcoin Investment Returned

MarketCapOf’s ROI Calculator shows how calm last month looked next to this week’s headlines. A hypothetical $1,000 put into Bitcoin on September 1, 2026, and held until September 30 grew to $1,077.18, a 1.08x return. The same amount in XRP reached $1,103.70, or 1.10x, over the same 30 days.

That puts Bitcoin’s September gain at about 7.7%, which is steady but not explosive, and XRP came out ahead by roughly 2.7 percentage points. The gap is small, so the market did not chase higher-risk coins very hard last month. Anyone building a Bitcoin price prediction from this chart will also see that the climb into the low $80,000s came slowly, through steady buying, and not through one sharp spike. A slow climb like that tends to hold better than a sudden rally, but it still leaves room for a Bitcoin market correction if ETF demand keeps fading.

Also Read: XRP Eyes $5 First, but ETF Outflows Challenge the $15 Bull Run

CryptoQuant Flags A Bitcoin Market Correction Risk Tied To Stocks

The biggest outside risk right now comes from Wall Street. A CryptoQuant analysis shared by contributor @nocoffeenobrain suggests that if equities drop much further, Bitcoin could follow them lower, as Coinfomania reports in its CryptoQuant equities coverage. The analysis ties the odds of a Bitcoin market correction to the stock market and points out that Bitcoin trading has become heavily driven by futures.

A futures-heavy market moves faster up and down, because forced selling from liquidations can stack on top of regular selling. That makes a Bitcoin market correction more painful for anyone using leverage, and it also explains why COINOTAG’s support at $80,902 matters so much at the moment.

CryptoQuant’s Head Of Research Warned About Demand In September

The equity link is not CryptoQuant’s only worry. In a BTC report covered by The Block, the firm’s head of research warned about weak spot demand.

Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, stated:

“With spot demand still in contraction and futures growth stalling, near-term upside becomes harder to sustain.”

He also had this to say:

“When holders move coins to exchanges, they usually intend to sell.”

Those comments came three weeks ago, so they work as background here, but they line up with Tuesday’s data. Weaker Bitcoin ETF inflows mean less fresh spot demand, and any large deposits onto exchanges would add to the risk of a Bitcoin market correction. The two Wintermute withdrawals did the opposite of what Moreno described, since they took coins away from trading venues, and that kind of Bitcoin whale accumulation usually cuts the supply sitting on exchanges.

Gold Or Bitcoin As Portfolio Insurance

The debate over Bitcoin as a hedge got another round this week. As BeInCrypto reveals in its Jim Cramer Mad Money recap, the CNBC host told a young caller that he prefers gold bullion to Bitcoin for insuring a portfolio, with a gold ETF as his pick if bullion is out of reach. He did not dismiss Bitcoin, and he called Bitcoin and Ethereum the more vetted cryptocurrencies, and he also warned against cheap, low-quality tokens.

The numbers behind that debate show two assets well off their highs. Gold set a record at $5,589 an ounce on January 28, 2026, as 24/7 Wall St. shows in its Bitcoin vs gold hedge analysis on Yahoo Finance, and it traded around $4,115 on the morning of October 21, according to Mitrade’s daily gold report. That leaves the metal about 26% below its peak. Bitcoin, at $83,192.70, sits roughly 34% under its October 2025 high near $126,000. The bigger gap shows up in the swings, since the same April analysis put gold’s annual volatility at roughly 12% to 18% and Bitcoin’s at 45% to 60%, and that calmer ride is the main reason gold fans call the metal the safer hedge.

The Gold-First Camp And The Other Side

Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, shares the gold-first view, and he wrote in August that he would avoid Bitcoin and does not see it as a safe haven. Investors bought the two assets that month anyway. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas reported record five-day inflows of $7 billion into gold and Bitcoin ETFs, BeInCrypto noted, and Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argued that stocks and bonds share a weakness, since they are priced in dollars.

Cathie Wood sits on the other side of that argument, and she recently said the coin is turning against gold as spot ETFs posted $241M in inflows. For fund holders, that tug of war matters, because money that rotates into gold funds is money that does not show up in Bitcoin ETF inflows. Insurance only proves its worth in a sell-off, so the next Bitcoin market correction would show quickly which side of this debate had the better point.

Also Read: HYPE Rallies 40.5% in Q3 as Grayscale Buying Defies ETF Outflows

What Comes Next For Bitcoin ETF Inflows

Wednesday’s ETF filings will not come out until after the U.S. market closes, and they will show whether Tuesday’s drop was a pause or the start of another weak stretch. If Bitcoin ETF inflows bounce back toward Monday’s levels, the bulls get support for a run at $84,186. If they stay small, the October deficit of $65.1 million could widen, and the risk of a Bitcoin market correction grows, especially with stocks under pressure.

Regulation in Europe adds one more thing to watch, as the largest crypto exchange faces MiCA scrutiny as Lagarde weighs an ECB exit before October 2027. Rule changes there can shift sentiment quickly, even for assets that mostly trade on U.S. platforms, and a surprise ruling could easily throw off any short-term Bitcoin price prediction.

The Mystery Buyer Holds The Other Key

On-chain, the next Wintermute Bitcoin transfer, if one comes, would tell traders whether the mystery buyer keeps going. Two withdrawals worth about $187 million in seven days already make this one of the clearest cases of Bitcoin whale accumulation this autumn. The tug of war is still open: ETF buyers stepped back on Tuesday, a big private buyer stepped in, and Bitcoin sits about $1,000 below its key resistance, so for now, a cautious Bitcoin price prediction makes more sense than a bold one.