Bitcoin ETFs Lose $450M, Deepest Since June, as CLARITY Act Stalls in Senate

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $450.4 million on September 15, their steepest single-day withdrawal since June 24, according to Farside Investments data cited by Cointelegraph. The pullback landed the same day the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the US Senate, and Bitcoin fell roughly 2.5% to trade near $75,700 to $76,000.

A second outlet, BeInCrypto, reported the day’s damage differently: a combined $592 million outflow across Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs together, which it described as the deepest single-day outflow in months for both products. Both figures point at the same underlying event, but they measure different things, and it is worth being precise about which is which.

Five funds, most of the damage

Farside’s fund-level breakdown, reported by Cointelegraph, shows where the $450.4 million Bitcoin outflow concentrated. Fidelity’s FBTC lost $214.8 million. BlackRock’s IBIT shed $161.7 million. Grayscale’s GBTC gave up $44.1 million, ARK 21Shares’ ARKB lost $17.4 million, and Bitwise’s BITB lost $12.4 million.

The reversal was abrupt. One trading day earlier, the same 13 US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs had taken in $159.9 million. The last time outflows ran this deep was June 24, when the 13 funds lost $469 million during a broader tech stock sell-off.

Why the $450M and $592M figures don’t cancel each other out

The $450.4 million figure covers Bitcoin ETFs only, sourced to Farside. The $592 million figure from BeInCrypto covers Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs combined, and its underlying data source was not specified in the report Cryptaur reviewed. If the two totals are placed side by side, Ethereum spot ETFs would account for roughly $140 million of the gap, but neither outlet published an Ethereum-only number, so that split is arithmetic on our end, not a confirmed line item from either source.

Both reports agree on direction and cause: outflows accelerated, prices fell, and the trigger was the same Senate setback. They diverge on scope and total, which is normal when two desks pull from different aggregators on the same trading day.

The CLARITY Act as the common thread

The CLARITY Act, the market structure bill crypto firms had pushed as a path toward clearer US regulatory treatment, failed to advance in the Senate on September 15. Both outlets tie the ETF outflows and Bitcoin’s price drop directly to that stall. Removing an expected regulatory catalyst appears to have prompted holders to redeem shares rather than wait out the uncertainty.

For anyone pulling flow data from an aggregator API, the lesson is simple: check whether a total is Bitcoin-only or combined with Ethereum, and whether the cutoff is end-of-day or intraday, before comparing it against a headline from a different outlet. Bitcoin traded at $75,700, down 2.5% over the prior 24 hours, at the time Cointelegraph’s figures were published on September 16.

Read more: Bessent Publicly Presses Senate to Advance Clarity Act Before Next Week’s Vote

Sources

• beincrypto.com
• cointelegraph.com