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Aug. 7, 2026 at 3:50 am GMT 2 min read
- BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw a $3.5 billion net capital-share decrease in Q2, after a $13.9 billion gain a year earlier.
- That swing reflects share creations and redemptions, not market prices, and it hit IBIT and ETHA trust-level activity directly.
- August inflows offered a small offset, but the filings suggest only sustained buying will show whether redemptions have eased.
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs recorded a combined $3.5 billion net decrease from capital-share transactions in the second quarter, reversing a $13.9 billion increase a year earlier, according to new SEC filings.
The $17.4 billion year-over-year swing measures trust-level share creation and redemption activity.
The Aug. 6 filings for the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) and iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) use the capital-share line for contributions tied to issued shares less distributions tied to redeemed shares. It is separate from price-driven changes in the trusts’ net assets and investors’ individual profits or losses.
IBIT recorded $4.3 billion of contributions for shares issued and $7.2 billion of distributions for shares redeemed during the three months ended June 30. The difference produced a $2.9 billion net decrease.
ETHA recorded $943.3 million in contributions and $1.5 billion in distributions, resulting in a $583.4 million decrease.
The 2025 IBIT filing and 2025 ETHA filing show the combined $13.9 billion prior-year increase, creating a $3.5 billion decrease against this year.
IBIT’s operations reduced net assets by over $7 billion during the second quarter, while ETHA’s reduced them by $1.5 billion. Those totals include net realized losses and unrealized depreciation at the trust level.
BlackRock’s IBIT and ETHA shifted from a $13.9 billion capital-share increase in Q2 2025 to a $3.5 billion decrease in Q2 2026.The activity tables placed 106,148 BTC and 770,839 ETH in rows labeled as assets sold for share redemptions. The footnotes say those rows include in-kind distributions valued at $3.85 billion of Bitcoin and $904 million of Ethereum, without disclosing the unit-level split.
The full token quantities cannot be treated as wholly open-market sales, and the filings do not identify who initiated the underlying share redemptions.
Three August sessions offer a limited counterweight
As of Aug. 6, Farside Investors’ latest completed Bitcoin ETF row showed a $196.8 million IBIT inflow on Aug. 5, while its Ethereum ETF table showed $50.3 million for ETHA. Across Aug. 3-5, IBIT captured $478.5 million in inflows, and ETHA drew $83.8 million.
As a nominal scale marker only, $562.3 million equals 15.9% of $3.5 billion. If August sustains the same $187.4 million combined daily average, it would take about 19 trading sessions for BlackRock funds to accumulate a similar amount.
That shows why persistence over weeks is the more meaningful test.
