00:00Let's see where things stand. Bitcoin, to Scarlett's Point, touching $80,000 for the first time going all the way
00:06back to May.
00:07And get this, just in the last roughly 10 days since August 15th, it's up 26%. Look at that.
00:15You go back, more than 26%, almost touching $80,000 as we speak.
00:19Here's why. Chatter around the debasement trade helping drive inflows as the U.S. Treasury steps up bond purchases.
00:25And last week, the OG crypto, we're talking about Bitcoin, of course, saw the strongest weekly inflows into U.S.
00:31spot ETFs, Scarlett, in 10 months.
00:33And I'm watching those flows, Tim, because the 13 U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs last week drew in a net
00:39$1.92 billion, led by BlackRock's IBIT.
00:43That total is the most since last October, when Bitcoin crashed from its record high and ushered in this crypto
00:49winter.
00:49The inflows right over here, you can see, really represent a sharp rebound from the previous week when spot ETFs
00:57suffered almost $390 million of net outflows.
01:00Now, so far this year, in 2026, Bitcoin ETFs have seen some $2.9 billion drained.
01:06Tim?
01:07Well, as we mentioned, we're talking a lot about whether or not this crypto winter is over today and finding
01:12the answers to that.
01:13Establishing a new trading range will require sustained demand.
01:16We're going to discuss this with Bloomberg's Isabel Lee.
01:19Isabel, it seems like the tone has just completely shifted in the last few days.
01:24You wrote about how we're seeing to the moon.
01:27We're seeing memes from Michael Saylor.
01:29Is the crypto winter over?
01:31I think sentiment-wise, it may be.
01:33They'll get any reprove they can get.
01:34You know how it is.
01:35If you see Bitcoin rally, Twitter or X lights up.
01:38You forgot to say, hodl, hold on to dear life.
01:41But all the memes possible.
01:42Shout out to 2020, 2021, right?
01:44Yes, absolutely.
01:45The trigger of this is really the bond buying of Treasury Scott Besson.
01:49I mean, that pulled yields slower, weakened the dollar, strengthened the gold, and it revived debasement trade.
01:54And what is debasement trade?
01:55It's the premise that, oh, maybe the fiscal fiat currencies will increase, will decrease in value.
02:00And that's why there will be value in scarce assets.
02:03And Bitcoin has 21 million shares.
02:05And that's why people were like, woo-hoo, maybe this is our time to shine.
02:09Another source of support, I suppose, for spot Bitcoin ETFs in particular and the net inflows that they've seen over
02:16the last week
02:16is a theory that Eric Bakshunas has written about, which is that a lot of people lost money through a
02:22hack into their cold wallets.
02:24And some $100 million or at least $100 million of spot Bitcoin was stolen.
02:28So that's led to a change in behavior where people are like, I'd rather hold Bitcoin through ETFs than the
02:33actual currency digital coin themselves.
02:35Yes, that did definitely strengthen the case for ETFs, because if you're not really committed to self-custody
02:42and if you're not really all in about, like, I want to hold the Bitcoin myself,
02:45why not just give it to a trusted Wall Street asset manager like BlackRock, like Fidelity,
02:50all those prominent people who have market makers and custodians that are very white?
02:55Because that goes against the entire thesis of having this stuff yourself.
03:00But you're talking about Bitcoin.
03:01Get rid of the intermediary here, right?
03:03But you're talking about Bitcoin purists.
03:04Some people hold Bitcoin for fun, as a diversifier, as just out of a curiosity.
03:09So maybe that's why they prefer ETFs.
03:11And the investor base has widened as well from the original purists.
03:15Yes, from retail to institutional.
03:16And we've seen huge inflows into Bitcoin ETFs.
03:21I think we saw the highest last week in, like, several years.
03:24And Monday, we saw inflows of, like, $400 million spread across 13 spot Bitcoin ETFs.
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