Bitcoin ETF inflows top $999M as corporate treasuries keep buying
DeFi & Yields ·
A wave of institutional demand hit crypto markets on September 22, with spot Bitcoin ETFs, corporate treasury buyers, and exchange infrastructure all posting notable gains.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $999M in net inflows, while Ether ETFs added another $270M, signaling continued institutional appetite for regulated crypto exposure. Corporate treasury accumulation also continued at pace: Strategy acquired 950 BTC for $76M and repurchased $174 million of STRC, while Strive added 1,355 Bitcoin for $107.7M, pushing its total holdings to 26,355 BTC as it works toward becoming the second-largest corporate Bitcoin holder by year-end.
The buying spree extended into market infrastructure. Binance invested $100 million in Circle, deepening its stablecoin partnership according to the Wall Street Journal. Separately, Coinbase launched IPO access for US retail investors, starting with Oura, marking a step toward broadening retail participation in traditional listings through a crypto-native platform, per wublockchain.xyz.
Trading venues also saw a valuation shift, with Hyperliquid reportedly surpassing Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange in market valuation, underscoring how quickly decentralized exchange infrastructure has scaled relative to legacy financial institutions.
The combination of ETF inflows, treasury accumulation, and exchange-level investment points to broad-based institutional participation across multiple layers of the crypto market rather than a single driver. Corporate Bitcoin accumulation strategies, tracked in aggregate by trackers such as leviathan.news, continue to add to the sector's balance-sheet exposure.
What remains unclear is whether the pace of ETF inflows and corporate purchases will hold beyond this reporting window, and whether Hyperliquid's valuation milestone reflects a durable shift in trading volume versus a temporary market condition. The extent to which Strive's stated goal of reaching second-largest corporate Bitcoin holdings materializes by year-end also remains to be seen.