Bitcoin Rise Tests ETF Demand

We’d call it a bitcoin bounce, but no bouncy ball in the world behaves like the volatile digital asset.

Bitcoin’s price has risen significantly over the past week, hovering around $80,000, which is up from just under $60,000 in late June. A roughly 25% jump in recent days has been credited to an initial short squeeze, but other factors likely contributed to the price staying relatively high. 

“A lot of the price increase was more mechanical than demand-based,” said Matt Kaufman, head of ETFs at Calamos Investments, noting that the recently announced Treasury buybacks for long-term debt that (at least briefly) brought down yields also may have helped prop up bitcoin. But it’s also notable that the Securities and Exchange Commission issued its proposals for exemptions for crypto issuers, as the Clarity Act faces an uncertain future in Congress.

Follow the Money

As often happens when something appreciates, traders and investors pile in. As prices rose last week, about $2.4 billion flowed into bitcoin ETFs, marking one of the best sales weeks in months. That’s also notable as about $3.2 billion poured out of digital asset ETFs year to date through July, per data from Morningstar Direct. There are hints that institutional investors are once again buying, or at least have backed off from selling. 

There are also indications that some of the big crypto ETF issuers are having success with programs that let digital asset owners move assets into their funds via in-kind creations, per data from Bloomberg:

• BlackRock, which reduced the minimum size of such transactions from $25 million to $1 million, has reported a total of about $5 billion in creations via that route for its $60 billion Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT).
• Moving assets to ETFs may help alleviate custody concerns, something that big crypto owners could have on their minds amid kidnappings and ransoms. Also, remember that recent $100 million Coldcard hack?

A Bit of Protection: It’s not lost on investors that the price of bitcoin is down 36% from its high of over $126,000 in October 2025. “The drawdown is still fresh on people’s minds, so I think they’re curious about when it’s going to fully recover,” Kaufman said. Calamos, which provides a series of bitcoin ETFs with downside protection of 80%, 90% or 100%, sees the price volatility as a selling point. “The headline for us is: ‘If you were in the protected products, you didn’t participate in all the drawdown, and now that sets you up well to participate in your recovery,’” Kaufman said.