A lack of demand for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is raising concerns about Bitcoin’s outlook for the rest of the year, even as the US government appears to be nearing the end of its 41-day shutdown period.
On Monday, the U.S. Senate approved a funding measure, moving Congress one step closer to ending the government shutdown. The bill is now headed for a full vote in the House of Representatives, which could come as early as Wednesday, CBS News reported Monday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said during Monday morning’s Senate meeting that he expects passage to take “hours, not days,” according to Military Times.
However, despite the optimistic news from the US, spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF investments were flat on Monday, with inflows of just $1.2 million, according to data from Pharcyde Investors.
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“Despite the US government shutdown appearing to be over and the S&P and gold rallying strongly, there were no bids for Bitcoin ETFs yesterday,” said Charles Edwards, founder of Capriol Investments, adding that this is not the situation we want to be in.
“Risk assets typically appreciate within weeks of a shutdown. There is still time to turn this ship around, but it needs to turn around,” Edwards wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows were the main driver of Bitcoin momentum in 2025, Jeff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered, recently told Cointelegraph.
However, BlackRock’s fund was the only one among all ETF issuers to record positive year-to-date (YTD) inflows, receiving $28.1 billion while other issuers recorded cumulative outflows of $1.27 million, Cointelegraph reported on October 28.
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Analysts call mid-cycle consolidation, not bull market at the end of 2025
While some investors are concerned about the end of the bull market cycle, analysts at Bitfinex exchange see this as a “mid-cycle consolidation phase” rather than a cascading decline.
“The current correction shows a structure very similar to that observed in June 2024 and February 2025, both of which were pivotal inflection points where Bitcoin balanced between recovery and further contraction,” analysts told Cointelegraph, adding:
“The current drawdown closely matches the average size of previous mid-cycle retracements, with each correction step since the start of the current bull market in 2023 reaching approximately 22 percent from the all-time high before the reversal.”
Notably, about 72% of BTC supply was still profitable when Bitcoin fell to $100,000, which is a good sign for an economic recovery, but a broader recovery will require “an influx of new demand” from institutional and retail investors, Bitfinex analysts explained.
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