Highlights
- US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $232 million on August 26, their eighth consecutive day of net inflows.
- Spot Ether ETFs added $192 million the same day, also an eighth straight positive session.
- BlackRock's IBIT and ETHA led both categories, with IBIT's lifetime inflows now above $63 billion.
- HTX Research says Bitcoin is approaching a key resistance zone as Nvidia's results extend the AI capex cycle.
- Analysts warn valuations and positioning across AI and crypto are getting crowded even as fundamentals hold up.
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $232 million in net inflows on August 26, marking an eighth consecutive day of positive flows, according to data from SoSoValue cited by PANews. BlackRock's IBIT again led the pack with $201 million of single-day inflows, pushing its cumulative total to roughly $63.1 billion since launch. Grayscale's Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF (BTC) added $46.8 million, bringing its lifetime inflows to about $2.85 billion. The streak has run alongside a parallel run in Ether products: spot Ether ETFs pulled in $192 million on the same day, also an eighth straight day of net buying, separate PANews/SoSoValue data showed. BlackRock's ETHA took in $116 million, lifting its total since inception to about $12.5 billion, while Grayscale's Ether Mini Trust added $34.7 million for a cumulative $1.9 billion.
The back-to-back streaks arrive as Bitcoin pushes toward a technically significant ceiling. In a note flagged by PANews, HTX Research analyst Chloe wrote that HTX DeepThink's latest commentary frames global risk assets as entering “a critical pricing window”: AI fundamentals keep beating expectations, but the bar for what counts as a beat is rising fast, even as Bitcoin, after its recent rebound, closes in on a key resistance band. The report points to Nvidia's most recent quarter as evidence the AI capital-expenditure cycle has not cooled — the company beat fiscal Q2 2027 estimates, and CFO Colette Kress guided for roughly 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028, with the binding constraint now supply of GPUs, advanced packaging and data-center capacity rather than demand.
Institutional Demand Still Outpacing Skepticism
Related: Surging Open Interest, Can Bitcoin Secure a Hold Above $80K and Pull XRP Higher?
The scale of ETF demand underscores how large allocators have kept adding exposure through a volatile August. Eight straight days of inflows across both Bitcoin and Ether products is a rare degree of synchrony, and it comes as broader macro conditions — rate-cut expectations, resilient tech earnings, and continued corporate treasury buying — have kept risk appetite elevated. IBIT alone now accounts for a meaningful share of all Bitcoin ETF assets globally, reinforcing BlackRock's position as the dominant gateway for institutional Bitcoin exposure. On the Ether side, ETHA's pace suggests institutions are increasingly treating spot Ether products as a core holding rather than a satellite bet, a shift that has accelerated since spot Ether ETFs cleared their first full year of trading.
Why the Nvidia-Crypto Linkage Matters
HTX's framing — that crypto and AI-linked equities are now trading on the same macro pricing window — matters because it ties Bitcoin's next move less to crypto-native catalysts and more to whether mega-cap tech can keep clearing an ever-higher bar. Nvidia's guidance of continued supply-constrained growth into fiscal 2028 suggests the capex cycle underpinning the AI trade, and by extension a chunk of the liquidity flowing into risk assets including Bitcoin, is not yet exhausted. But HTX's own caution — that valuations and positioning are “becoming crowded” — signals that a disappointment in either AI earnings or macro data could trigger outsized moves across both equities and crypto simultaneously.
What to Watch Next
Traders will be watching whether Bitcoin can clear its current resistance zone with the same conviction the ETF flow data implies, and whether the inflow streak extends to a ninth day when SoSoValue reports Wednesday's figures. The next major test for the AI-crypto correlation thesis comes with upcoming PCE inflation data and the Federal Reserve's September policy meeting, both of which will shape whether the liquidity backdrop that has powered this inflow streak persists into the fall.
