Summary
- US spot Bitcoin ETFs have posted net inflows for seven consecutive trading days.
- Bitcoin fell to $64,760 after touching a monthly high near $66,700 two days earlier.
- CryptoQuant data shows spot demand weakening even as ETF buying continues.
- The four-hour RSI has dropped to 41 from overbought territory earlier this month.
Bitcoin traded near $64,700 on July 23, giving back part of the rally that carried it to $66,700 just two days before. The pullback knocked 2.2% off the price over 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap, while the asset’s market capitalization held at $1.29 trillion. What makes the drop worth a closer look is what didn’t happen alongside it: US spot ETFs kept buying. Data tracked by Santiment shows seven straight trading days of net inflows since July 14, totaling roughly $981 million, even as the chart below it started to roll over.
The last time Bitcoin ETFs strung together a run this long was in early October 2025, right before the price pushed to its $126,000 record. That comparison doesn’t guarantee a repeat, and the size of the current streak is far smaller than the flows seen back then, but it does show what sustained ETF demand has historically preceded. Santiment’s own commentary on the data flagged the same tension playing out now: conditions look supportive enough for a run back toward $70,000, yet a sudden oversized single-day inflow would be the signal to watch for, since that kind of spike has tended to mark short-term tops rather than the start of fresh legs higher.
Two Funds Carried Almost the Entire Streak
Farside Investors’ breakdown of the eleven US spot Bitcoin ETFs fills in where the streak came from and where it nearly broke. BlackRock’s IBIT carried almost every positive day on its own, Fidelity’s FBTC rode alongside it more often than not, and Grayscale’s GBTC bled money on nearly every session it recorded a flow at all.
Two things stand out in that stretch. July 13 produced the single worst day since the streak began, with IBIT and FBTC both shedding money at the same time, and it lines up almost exactly with the sharpest drop on the price chart that week, when Bitcoin briefly gave up the $64,000 level before clawing it back within days. And GBTC never posted a positive day across the whole window, even when every other fund was pulling in fresh cash.
Why BlackRock Keeps Winning and Grayscale Keeps Losing
The mechanics behind that split come down to cost. GBTC still charges a 1.50% annual fee, a holdover from its days as the only spot-exposure vehicle available before the ETFs converted in 2024, while IBIT charges 0.25% and newer entrants like Morgan Stanley’s MSBT charge as little as 0.14%. Authorized participants create and redeem ETF shares based on where demand sits, and when a cheaper fund can offer the same Bitcoin exposure for a fraction of the cost, money migrates toward it over time. That rotation shows up as an outflow on GBTC’s line even on days when the total ETF category takes in hundreds of millions, and it says more about fee competition inside the ETF wrapper than about sentiment on Bitcoin itself.
A Cooling RSI Signals Fading Momentum, Not a Reversal Yet
Zooming into the price action helps explain why the ETF inflows haven’t translated into a clean breakout. Bitcoin climbed from a low near $58,700 on July 1 to the $66,700 high by July 21, and the 50-period exponential moving average, now sitting at $65,016, tracked that climb the whole way up. Price sitting above that average during the rally reflected buyers staying in control on a short-term basis; the close of $64,760 falling just below it now is a mild warning sign, not a reversal signal on its own, but a hint that momentum has cooled enough to let the average catch up.
The RSI tells a similar story. It peaked near 70 twice this month, first around July 5 and again near July 20, both levels that traders generally treat as a sign buying has moved too far too fast. It has since dropped to 41, which sits below the neutral 50 mark without yet reaching the 30 threshold that usually marks oversold conditions. In plain terms, the rush of buying that drove the rally has faded, but sellers haven’t taken firm control either.
A Weaker Signal Sitting Underneath the ETF Headlines
CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju published a chart on July 23 that complicates the inflow story further. His data separates spot demand from futures demand on a 30-day basis, and it shows spot buying losing strength while futures demand, though still net positive, runs well below where it stood during the rebound three months earlier. That distinction matters because ETF creation flows and futures positioning can mask what’s happening in the underlying spot market, where actual coins change hands. A rally propped up mainly by ETF plumbing and futures positioning, without spot demand growing alongside it, tends to have less staying power than one where all three move together.
Bitcoin spot demand is weakening. Futures demand remains net positive, but is significantly lower than during the rebound three months ago. pic.twitter.com/aWisc8VQ5k
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) July 23, 2026
The $62,000 Zone Becomes the Line in the Sand
If the inflow streak holds and spot demand starts to recover alongside it, the retest of $66,700 and a push toward $70,000 becomes the more likely path, echoing the setup Santiment pointed to from October. If spot demand keeps softening while ETF flows are the only thing propping up the tape, the more fragile scenario takes over, and with price already sitting under the 50 EMA, the next real test would be the $62,000 to $63,000 zone where the market consolidated in early July, with the $58,700 low from July 1 as the level below that. The one signal worth watching closely in either direction is a single outsized ETF inflow day. Santiment’s own note on the data treats that as a warning rather than good news, since spikes of that size have tended to show up right before short-term tops rather than confirming a breakout.
