Nine firms cut 68,000 BTC of bitcoin ETF exposure

Nine firms cut 68,000 BTC of spot bitcoin ETF exposure in the nine months to June 2026, more than the entire net decline across 13F filers, according to a Galaxy Research report cited by Decrypt.

The report counted 355,000 BTC of spot bitcoin ETF shares held by 13F filers at the end of September 2025, just before bitcoin's all-time high. By June 2026 that had fallen to 307,000 BTC, a 14% drop.

Advisers, family offices and individuals that do not file 13Fs cut their spot bitcoin ETF holdings by 6.6% over the same nine months, while bitcoin fell 49%, the report found. With wealth platforms and sovereign funds on the buy side, the holder base now leans on client allocations rather than desks arbitraging the futures curve, meaning ETF flows will follow price and advice more than the basis.

The nine firms trimmed 29% to 100% of their positions, and their combined cut of roughly $5.4 billion at current prices exceeded the net 13F decline. The other roughly 2,200 filers added about 20,000 BTC between them, worth roughly $1.6 billion.

The sellers were Millennium Management, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, Capula Management, Farallon Capital, D.E. Shaw, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, Symmetry Investments and Tudor Investment. Morgan Stanley's wealth management arm, Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council were among the buyers.

Galaxy's head of firmwide research, Alex Thorn, wrote that the sellers were largely running a trade rather than making a bet on bitcoin. They bought spot ETF shares while shorting CME bitcoin futures to pocket the gap between the two, known as the basis. The front-month basis averaged 7.9% annualized in the 30 days before bitcoin's high and 4.8% in the 30 days to Oct. 21. After fees, rolling costs and margin, the trade earns about 1.5 points over cash, the report estimates. Thorn argued the remaining edge does not cover the trade's tail risk, citing December 2022, when the basis inverted to negative 31% annualized.

"That arithmetic, not the price, is why the multi-strategy desks left," Thorn wrote.

CFTC data on CME bitcoin futures show a parallel retreat. Asset managers' net long position fell from 43,300 BTC in the week of bitcoin's all-time high to 18,400 BTC, and leveraged funds' net short shrank from 71,400 BTC to 30,600 BTC. Open interest is down 28% in bitcoin terms and 51% in dollar terms.

As Private Wealth Daily previously reported, bitcoin's share of total crypto market value reached 60% on Oct. 22 while ETF flows wavered. Across all holders, spot bitcoin ETF holdings fell 11% from their October 2025 peak to the July trough, against a 53% decline in bitcoin.