$4B BTC in 4 weeks: How Bitcoin ETFs buy more than double the BTC mined

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs added $1.63 billion last week, bringing four-week net intake to $3.96 billion and marking nine positive weeks out of the last twelve.

The 12-week rolling sum stands at $6.08 billion, roughly mid-range for 2025 based on internal tracker built from fund disclosures and public flow tables.

Year to date, net inflows total $22.78 billion, with $58.44 billion since inception.

An assets-under-management proxy is $155.9 billion, while the average weekly value traded over the past four weeks is $16.17 billion compared with a 12-week average of $17.90 billion.

Flows re-accelerated into the turn of the quarter as the policy and macro backdrop shifted.

The Federal Reserve cut rates in September, and market pricing tilts to further easing in the fourth quarter, lowering the hurdle for rate-sensitive allocators that use ETFs to add exposure.

The first day of the U.S. government shutdown pushed gold to record highs and the dollar lower, a cross-asset mix that has historically coincided with stronger crypto ETP prints. Global product data corroborate the turn.

Consecutive weekly inflows were logged through late September, with Bitcoin capturing the majority of tickets, and $1.03 billion went into digital asset funds in the week to Sept. 29, including $790 million into Bitcoin vehicles. Liquidity remains ETF-centric.

Research finds that U.S. hours have held a larger share of depth since the ETF launch and that ETF net flows explain only a modest share of daily BTC returns, with an R² near 0.32. This is a reminder that derivatives and macro still drive a large portion of variance.

With Q4 underway, simple scenario math frames the path for net flows and how much Bitcoin could be absorbed from circulating supply.

The past four weeks annualize to roughly $12.9 billion for the quarter, while the 12-week run-rate implies about $6.6 billion. The outer bands are provided by the 2025 extremes.

At an illustrative Bitcoin price of $115,000, each $1 billion over a four-week window maps to about 8,700 BTC of net buying, roughly 311 BTC per day.

Post-halving issuance averages near 450 BTC per day, or roughly 41,400 BTC over a 92-day quarter. The table below translates those rates to Q4 totals.

| Scenario | Assumption | Q4 net flows (USD) | BTC absorbed at $115k | vs. miner issuance | |--------------------------------------|----------------------|--------------------|-----------------------|---------------------------| | Bull, retouch 2025 best 12-week pace | +$17.1B per 12 weeks | ~+$18.5B | ~161,000 BTC | ~3.9× quarterly issuance | | Base, sustain last 4-week pace | +$3.96B per 4 weeks | ~+$12.9B | ~112,000 BTC | ~2.7× | | Moderate, revert to 12-week average | +$6.08B per 12 weeks | ~+$6.6B | ~57,000 BTC | ~1.4× | | Bear, revisit 2025 worst 12-week run | −$4.56B per 12 weeks | ~−$4.9B | ~−43,000 BTC | ≈−1.0× |