A net outflow of $415.47 million was recorded in spot cryptocurrency ETFs traded in the USA for the week of February 16–22, 2026. This development, which stood out as one of the largest weekly outflows seen in recent months, caused total assets under management to decline to approximately 98 billion dollars.
Large Sales from Bitcoin and Ethereum Funds
Bitcoin and Ethereum-based ETFs were the products that saw the most selling pressure of the week. While there was a total net outflow of 315.86 million dollars from Bitcoin ETFs, 4,680 Bitcoins were sold through these funds. This amount corresponds to approximately 12 days of miners’ production. There was an outflow of $123.37 million in Ethereum ETFs and the sale of 63,218 Ethereum units. Funds exiting two major cryptocurrencies indicate that institutional investors have significantly reduced their positions recently.
Leading Issuers and Deal Breakdown
Major ETF issuers such as BlackRock, Fidelity and Grayscale dominated the week’s trading. BlackRock sold 4,497 Bitcoin and 52,151 Ethereum within a week. Fidelity sold 290 Bitcoin and 4,127 Ethereum. On the Grayscale side, 400 Bitcoin was purchased and 3,756 Ethereum was sold. While Bitcoin sales were widely distributed among major issuers, it was reported that there was an uninterrupted outflow of funds on the Ethereum side.
Selective Entries in Altcoin ETFs Draw Attention
While the outflow trend gained weight in large-cap crypto funds, some altcoin ETFs saw limited inflows. According to weekly data, $14.31 million inflow was made into Solana-based funds. Avalanche ETFs recorded a net positive move of $4.26 million, Chainlink $2.40 million, and XRP $1.84 million. In the Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) ETF, the figure was reported as 949 thousand dollars. Dogecoin and Litecoin ETFs remained unchanged throughout the week.
While these developments showed that there was a differentiation in the preferences of large portfolio owners, they revealed that infrastructure and infrastructure-focused crypto assets continued to attract relative attention from investors.
The sales in both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs indicate that institutions are cautiously re-evaluating their positions under the influence of fluctuations in global markets.
On the other hand, it is noteworthy that 4,680 Bitcoins changed hands in a week, and this amount is almost twice the newly produced supply. It is known that such heavy movements can have significant effects on spot market liquidity.
As a result, outflows have increased in major crypto ETFs this week, while a portion of investors appear to be turning to alternative layer-1 and infrastructure project ETFs.
