A Galaxy Research report published on 26 October, covered by an industry outlet on 28 October, finds that nearly all of the institutional selling in US spot Bitcoin ETF funds came from a short list of nine fast-money desks: Millennium Management, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, Capula, Farallon, D.E. Shaw, Schonfeld, Symmetry and Tudor. Each cut its ETF stake by anywhere from just under a third to the entire position, and together they shed roughly 68,000 BTC, about $5.4 billion at current prices, between September 2025 and June 2026.
Overall institutional holdings still look healthy. Firms filing quarterly 13F disclosures with the SEC held 355,000 BTC of ETF shares at the end of September 2025, just before Bitcoin’s all-time high; Galaxy puts the June 2026 figure at 307,000 BTC, down 14%. The nine desks alone account for more than the whole 48,000 BTC decline across 13F filers, so the remaining 2,200 or so filers were net buyers, adding about 20,000 BTC between them.
The maths that pushed the desks out
Galaxy Research puts the selling down to a collapsing cash-and-carry trade rather than any loss of faith in Bitcoin. The trade buys spot ETF shares and shorts CME Bitcoin futures to capture the premium of futures over spot. In the 30 days before the all-time high, that front-month premium ran at 7.9% annualised, a spread of 3.9 points over three-month Treasury bills. In the 30 days to 21 October it averaged 4.8%, only 0.6 points above bills.
After fees, rolling costs and margin, Galaxy estimates the trade now earns about 1.5 points over cash. November and December futures priced 6.3% to 6.5% at the 21 October close, about 2 points over bills before costs. “That arithmetic, not the price, is why the multi-strategy desks left,” Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s head of firmwide research, said in the report. He also pointed to the tail risk: in December 2022 the basis inverted to negative 31% annualised, turning the carry trade loss-making.
The unwind shows up in the futures market too
CFTC positioning data cited by Galaxy backs the 13F story. Asset managers’ net long in CME Bitcoin futures dropped 57% between the week of Bitcoin’s all-time high and the latest reading, standing at 18,400 BTC, while the net short run by CFTC-classified leveraged funds, the futures leg of the carry trade, more than halved to 30,600 BTC from 71,400 BTC. CME open interest is down 28% in Bitcoin terms and 51% in dollar terms.
The outflow was hedged flow, not an exit, so anyone reading it as bearish should look at who bought: Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm, Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. ETF holdings fell only 11% from their October 2025 peak even as Bitcoin fell 53%. Galaxy notes the funds have added 87,000 BTC since the June low, buying it calls directional rather than carry.
The list of firms comes from Galaxy’s reading of the filings; Galaxy itself discloses a Bitcoin holding, worth noting on its own market analysis. And the 13F data runs only to June 2026, so it does not capture current positioning. In flows, the picture has already turned, with roughly $286 million of ETF inflows in the week beginning 26 October after nearly $1 billion was shed over the previous two weeks.
