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Magyar28 Oct 2026
Galaxy Research says nine hedge funds and banks cut 68,000 BTC of spot Bitcoin ETF exposure as the cash-and-carry basis trade stopped paying. Wealth platforms and sovereign funds such as Mubadala added, and the other 13F filers were net buyers.
Bitcoin TradeReviewed News Desk
Bitcoin ETF selling by big institutions was concentrated in a small group of fast-money firms, not spread across Wall Street. That is the main finding of a Galaxy Research report covered by Decrypt, which looked at quarterly 13F filings for US spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Nine firms explain the whole drop
Institutions filing 13F reports held spot ETF shares worth 355,000 BTC 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% decline. According to Galaxy, nine firms account for more than all of it: Millennium Management, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, Capula Management, Farallon Capital, D.E. Shaw, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, Symmetry Investments and Tudor Investment.
Together they cut about 68,000 BTC of exposure, roughly $5.4 billion at current prices, trimming positions by 29% to 100%. The remaining roughly 2,200 filers added about 20,000 BTC in aggregate. Buyers named in the report include Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. Advisers, family offices and individuals who do not file 13Fs cut holdings by only 6.6% while the price fell 49%.
The basis trade stopped paying
Galaxy’s head of firmwide research Alex Thorn argues the sellers were running a trade rather than betting on Bitcoin. Many used cash-and-carry: buy spot ETF shares, short CME Bitcoin futures and pocket the gap, known as the basis. In the 30 days before the price peak the front-month basis averaged 7.9% annualized, 3.9 points above three-month Treasury bills. In the 30 days to October 21 it averaged 4.8%, only 0.6 points above bills, and after costs the report estimates about 1.5 points over cash. “That arithmetic, not the price, is why the multi-strategy desks left,” Thorn wrote.
CFTC data points the same way. Asset managers’ net long on CME Bitcoin futures fell from 43,300 BTC to 18,400 BTC, while leveraged funds’ net short shrank from 71,400 BTC to 30,600 BTC. Open interest is down 28% in BTC terms and 51% in dollar terms. Since the June low, ETFs have added 87,000 BTC, which Galaxy describes as directional buying rather than carry.
What it means for traders
Outflows driven by unwinding basis trades say less about long-term demand than headline numbers suggest, and the buyer base is shifting toward slower, allocation-driven money. The flip side is a thinner futures market: lower open interest can mean sharper moves around events. Note the 13F data only runs through June, and Galaxy discloses that it holds Bitcoin. This week’s ETF flows have turned positive again, at about $286 million so far, as covered in our Bitcoin ETF inflows report.
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This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Source: Decrypt, citing Galaxy Research and CFTC data.
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