Christmas market hype fizzles out! Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs lose momentum, analysts: next year's trend depends on post-holiday performance

With Christmas and New Year’s Day approaching, the cryptocurrency market seems to have entered a “hibernation mode.” US Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs collectively lost value on Tuesday, mainly due to year-end asset rebalancing and liquidity tightening before the long holiday, with profit-taking selling pressure clearly increasing.

According to SoSoValue data, the US Bitcoin spot ETF experienced a net outflow of $188.6 million on Tuesday, marking the fourth consecutive day of withdrawals. Among them, BlackRock’s IBIT suffered the heaviest outflow, with a net outflow of $157.3 million in a single day; Fidelity’s FBTC and Grayscale’s GBTC also were not spared.

On the other hand, Ethereum spot ETFs also saw a net outflow of $95.5 million on Tuesday, contrasting sharply with the previous day’s net inflow of $84.6 million. Grayscale’s ETHE alone saw a single-day outflow of $50.9 million, the largest among all Ethereum ETFs that day.

Kronos Research Chief Investment Officer Vincent Liu analyzed that the outflow of funds from Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs mainly reflects the end-of-year market mechanisms rather than a loss of investor confidence. Insufficient liquidity, portfolio rebalancing, and profit-taking are the main factors causing market weakness.

Nick Ruck, head of LVRG Research, also expressed similar views. He added that, besides seasonal profit-taking and declining liquidity, tax-loss selling (selling at a loss to offset taxes) is also a reason for recent capital outflows.

Presto Research researcher Rick Maeda reminded that market over-interpretation of ETF fund changes before Christmas is unwarranted. He pointed out that the fund flows of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have been volatile in recent months, and end-of-year risk reduction and book adjustments are normal phenomena, especially after increased volatility in Q4.

Comparing with last year’s data, Maeda noted that in the four trading days before Christmas 2024, Bitcoin spot ETFs experienced net outflows exceeding $1.5 billion, when prices were correcting from all-time highs. In contrast, he considers this year’s fund withdrawal to be relatively moderate.

According to CoinGecko data, Bitcoin is priced at $86,755 at the time of writing, down 0.7% in the past 24 hours; Ethereum has fallen 2.3% to $2,918.

However, not all crypto ETFs faced selling pressure. Ripple (XRP) spot ETF still saw an inflow of $8.2 million on Tuesday; Solana (SOL) spot ETF also recorded a net inflow of $4.2 million.

Contrary to the trend in the crypto market, the US stock market closed higher across the board on Tuesday. The S&P 500 rose 0.46%, closing at 6,909.79 points, reaching a new all-time high; the Nasdaq increased by 0.57%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also gained slightly by 0.16%.

The US stock market closed early on December 24 and was closed on December 25 for Christmas. Market consensus generally believes that the market reaction after the long holiday and economic indicators will be the real key, as these will serve as important clues for observing the market trend in early 2026.

“The real signals will appear after the holiday,” Vincent Liu pointed out. “Investors should closely monitor liquidity reflows, whether prices are once again leading capital flows, and the US initial jobless claims to be released on December 27.”