US Bitcoin ETFs Lose $201M as BlackRock Withdrawals Extend the Slump

US-listed spot Bitcoin funds recorded another difficult session on Monday, November 9. The updated Farside Investors flow table shows $201.0 million in net outflows across the group, extending a three-session losing streak. The important detail is that the negative total was not evenly spread across issuers: BlackRock’s IBIT recorded $213.2 million leaving, while Morgan Stanley’s MSBT attracted $22.1 million.

TL;DR: Spot Bitcoin ETFs lost a net $201.0 million on November 9, following $430.2 million on November 5 and $411.9 million on November 6. BlackRock drove Monday’s withdrawals, while one smaller fund reported inflows. The figures measure fund creations and redemptions, not the intentions of every Bitcoin investor.

Three sessions that add up to more than $1 billion

The latest fully reported Farside figures put the consecutive negative sessions at roughly $1.04 billion in aggregate. Thursday’s $430.2 million loss was followed by Friday’s $411.9 million and then Monday’s $201.0 million. That progression shows persistent selling pressure, although Monday’s net outflow was smaller than either of the previous two sessions.

Our previous report on Friday’s fund activity documented a similar pattern of issuer concentration. Going back further, the November 2 breakdown shows why it is worth examining individual ETF lines rather than reading the aggregate as a single institutional vote.

On November 9, ARK Invest and 21Shares’ ARKB showed a $9.9 million outflow. The positive contribution from MSBT offset part of the selling elsewhere. Several other funds showed no daily net creation or redemption. That does not mean no shares changed hands on exchanges; secondary-market trading and flows into or out of a fund’s underlying Bitcoin exposure are different measures.

Why IBIT carries so much of the story

BlackRock’s fund is a large and closely watched route into Bitcoin for investors using traditional brokerage and portfolio systems. Its persistent redemptions can therefore affect the tone of market commentary disproportionately. But the identity of an ETF’s end investors is not published in a daily flow table, and a withdrawal cannot automatically be attributed to hedge funds, pensions or retail holders.

The distinction between net flows and assets under management matters as well. A fund’s reported assets can fall when Bitcoin’s price drops even without corresponding redemptions. Conversely, share creations can occur on a day when the asset price weakens. Analysts who blend these concepts can make demand appear stronger or weaker than it actually was.

What would signal a more durable turn?

The next test is whether the large-issuer selling eases over several completed reporting sessions. One positive day would interrupt the streak but would not, by itself, demonstrate that buyers have regained control. It is also worth watching whether inflows broaden across products or remain confined to a single issuer.

These numbers are current through the November 9 US trading session, not an estimate of November 10 while trading is still under way. A better measure of sentiment combines a completed ETF flow series with spot volume, derivatives positioning and the changing rates outlook. For now, the latest evidence is that listed-fund demand remains weak even as the scale of net redemptions has moderated from last week’s peaks.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

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Bitcoin Faces a Tougher Rate Outlook After US October Inflation Rises 0.4%

The latest US inflation report has given Bitcoin traders a fresh reason to watch the bond market rather than just the crypto charts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on November 10 that consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, above the 0.3% monthly increase economists had broadly expected. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, increased 0.3%. The headline figure slowed from September’s 0.6% increase but still points to inflation pressures that the Federal Reserve cannot easily ignore.

TL;DR: October US CPI rose 0.4% month on month and core CPI increased 0.3%. The hotter reading strengthened expectations of tighter monetary policy. For Bitcoin, the immediate transmission mechanism runs through interest-rate expectations, the dollar, liquidity and risk appetite—not a mechanical relationship between CPI and BTC.

Why a monthly CPI number matters so much

A quarter-point difference in inflation might sound small, yet markets were positioned around a particular expectation. When the result is higher than forecast, investors must reconsider how soon the Fed can relax policy, or whether further tightening is required. Higher Treasury yields can make cash and government securities more attractive relative to assets that offer no contractual income, including Bitcoin.

The BLS report is also unusual because it does not include a year-on-year October CPI rate. Data-collection disruptions during the federal shutdown in October 2025 left the agency without the normal comparison base. Readers should not fill that gap with an invented annual figure or compare an unofficial estimate with an official monthly release. Shelter costs increased 0.3% and accounted for more than 30% of October’s monthly rise, while food increased 0.5% and energy 0.7%.

Bitcoin’s sensitivity is about financial conditions

Bitcoin does not have a fixed reaction function to inflation. Some investors describe it as protection against monetary debasement, while others trade it as a high-volatility risk asset. Both descriptions can influence positioning, sometimes on the same day. A surprise that pushes real yields higher can pressure speculative positions even when the longer-run inflation-hedge narrative remains intact.

The distinction is especially relevant after recent fund withdrawals. Our report on November 6 Bitcoin ETF outflows explains why heavy selling through listed funds can complicate a market already reacting to macro news. ETF redemptions, however, are not the same thing as every Bitcoin holder exiting.

There is a corporate dimension too. Firms that finance Bitcoin positions with equity, debt or preferred shares may find the price of capital changes when bond yields rise. NewsBTC recently examined how Strategy combined a Bitcoin purchase with preferred-share repurchases. Those funding mechanics deserve attention when monetary policy becomes less forgiving.

The next signals to check

The market will now weigh Fed commentary, Treasury yields and subsequent employment and inflation releases. Traders should also distinguish a brief reaction to the 8:30 a.m. US data release from a sustained change in price direction; crypto trades continuously while other asset markets open and close on different clocks.

A higher-than-expected CPI reading is a real headwind for hopes of an imminent policy pivot. It is not a price target for Bitcoin. The stronger editorial conclusion is that the investment environment just became more demanding, particularly for leveraged traders who need both stable financing conditions and rising asset prices.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

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US Sanctions Eight Canadian Money Services Firms Over Iranian Crypto Transfer Allegations

TL;DR: The US Treasury has added eight Canada-based money services businesses to its sanctions list, alleging that they helped move value for the Iranian regime and sanctioned actors. The November 6 action explicitly focuses on exchanges between local currencies and digital assets, demonstrating how crypto compliance disputes can arise at the point where cash, informal transfer networks and onchain wallets intersect.

The US Treasury has added eight Canada-based money services businesses to its sanctions list, alleging that they helped move value for the Iranian regime and sanctioned actors. The November 6 action explicitly focuses on exchanges between local currencies and digital assets, demonstrating how crypto compliance disputes can arise at the point where cash, informal transfer networks and onchain wallets intersect. It is a targeted designation, not a claim that ordinary Canadian remittances are inherently suspect.

Why Treasury targeted these businesses

The Office of Foreign Assets Control says the companies enabled conversion of Iranian rials and other currencies into digital assets used for cross-border payments. Several allegedly handled transactions linked to sanctioned Iranian crypto exchangers or wallet addresses associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Treasury also says some had changed names or addresses while remaining active. These are allegations and designations by US authorities; the release does not supply a separate court finding against every transaction. The policy rationale is to disrupt businesses officials believe provide a bridge from restricted counterparties to otherwise reachable financial channels.

The compliance effect is wider than a wallet list

OFAC designations can trigger obligations for US persons and firms subject to US jurisdiction, including blocking relevant property and avoiding prohibited dealings. Separately, exchanges, stablecoin issuers and payment companies may reassess exposure to identified counterparties. The official listing includes several Tron addresses, which may assist screening, but crypto enforcement cannot be reduced to one blockchain. A listed firm can change the addresses it uses, and a matching transaction must still be interpreted in its legal and operational context. Readers should distinguish a prohibited counterparty relationship from an unproven allegation about an unrelated user of the same network.

Why Canada is central to this case

Canada has established money service businesses handling remittances and currency exchange, including legitimate cross-border commerce. Treasury argues that particular operators were used to facilitate sanctioned Iranian flows. This creates a practical challenge for compliance teams: the business model of moving small international payments is not itself an indication of sanctions evasion. Screening requires understanding the firm, beneficial ownership, customer relationships and transaction patterns. A wallet-address match is useful evidence but cannot replace that broader inquiry, especially when a transaction passes through several custodians or payment processors.

A distinct measure from the MEXC action

The same day Treasury announced a separate FinCEN order restricting US institutional transfers to and from MEXC Global. The two announcements form part of Operation Economic Outcast, but they use different legal tools. Here, OFAC has designated specific businesses; in the exchange case, FinCEN is restricting financial transfers involving a named platform. Conflating the mechanisms would lead to confused headlines about who may transact and what happens next. The financial impact also depends on whether designated businesses have US-linked property, correspondent relationships or other reachable assets.

The next questions

The official OFAC list, including aliases and any later amendments, should be the reference point for compliance decisions. Investigators may publish additional evidence or update designations; businesses concerned about exposure need qualified legal advice rather than acting on social-media summaries. For the crypto sector, the larger story is the growing willingness of authorities to look past the chain itself and act against money movement businesses that turn digital assets into usable payment routes.

Primary source: US Treasury / OFAC. For additional context, see NewsBTC’s coverage of regulated fiat-to-crypto payment infrastructure.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

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Stellar Foundation Backs Marketnode to Expand Tokenized Funds Across Asia-Pacific

TL;DR: The Stellar Development Foundation announced a strategic investment in Marketnode on October 29, aiming to widen institutional access to tokenized investment products in Asia-Pacific. Marketnode is backed by Euroclear, HSBC, SGX Group and Temasek, but the announcement did not disclose an investment amount or ownership percentage.

Tokenization is frequently described as a technology that makes financial assets available on a blockchain. The harder part is often distribution: who is allowed to buy the product, how ownership is recorded, and which regulated institutions can service it.

That is the focus of a Stellar Development Foundation investment announced October 29. The foundation said it had made a strategic investment in Marketnode, an Asia-Pacific digital-market-infrastructure company with backing from Euroclear, HSBC, SGX Group and Temasek.

Infrastructure for products, not just tokens

Marketnode works with funds, credit products and structured investments, supplying technology and services for issuance, distribution and ongoing servicing. The ambition is to connect the firms that originate investment products with distributors and eligible investors using blockchain rails where appropriate.

A token representing a fund interest does not necessarily make that fund available to anyone with a wallet. Eligibility requirements, investor onboarding, local laws, transfer restrictions and redemption arrangements still apply. In institutional markets, making those controls work is often the difference between an experiment and a product that can be distributed at scale.

The announcement says Marketnode has already worked with global and regional asset managers and has discussed onchain access to select BNY Investments funds on Stellar. It also identifies relationships with asset managers including Franklin Templeton, Maybank Asset Management, CGS International and WisdomTree.

Those references are evidence of an existing institutional network, but they should not be read as a guarantee that every product from every named organisation is universally available or that all its assets have migrated to Stellar.

Why Asia-Pacific is a strategic market

The region contains large financial centres, significant cross-border investment activity and a range of approaches to regulated digital assets. A platform that can coordinate issuance and distribution may lower some operational friction between asset managers, custodians and investors.

Still, a public blockchain can supply only part of the solution. Legal title, disclosure, investor protections, tax reporting and reconciliation with traditional securities systems remain essential. Marketnode’s experience with institutional processes may be as important to the foundation’s plans as the underlying Stellar network itself.

For comparison, NewsBTC has covered the NYSE’s plans for tokenized-securities infrastructure. Tokenization and settlement are related pieces of a wider market-infrastructure problem, and both must fit the compliance standards that institutions already face.

What the investment does not reveal

Neither the monetary value of the investment nor the stake acquired was specified in the foundation’s announcement. That limits any attempt to infer Marketnode’s valuation or measure how much capital Stellar is committing relative to its other ecosystem investments.

There is also a difference between financial backing and market adoption. An investment can help a company build integrations, expand teams or develop products, but proof of use will come from assets actually issued, transactions settled, and institutions actively servicing customers over time.

The next useful milestones would include disclosed product launches, participating financial institutions, client access arrangements and measurable volume. Stellar has identified a credible institutional distribution problem and is backing a company that works on it. How much of that infrastructure eventually runs through its network remains the question to watch.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

Featured image: Singapore Financial District skyline across Marina Bay. Photo: Daniel Case via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Crypto Mining Trends in 2026: Margins, AI and Energy

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US Adds 165,000 Jobs in October: Why Bitcoin Traders Are Watching the Fed

TL;DR: The US economy added 165,000 payroll jobs in October while unemployment stood at 4.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November 6 release. The data complicate hopes of quick monetary easing, but the report by itself cannot establish what the Federal Reserve will do next or where Bitcoin will trade.

Bitcoin’s difficult trading week has coincided with a closely watched update on the US economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on November 6 that nonfarm payroll employment increased by 165,000 in October. The unemployment rate was little changed at 4.1%.

For cryptocurrency traders, the significance is not that payrolls have a mechanical relationship with Bitcoin’s price. Rather, employment data are one part of the evidence the Federal Reserve weighs when deciding whether inflation and economic activity justify changing interest rates.

The headline numbers tell only part of the story

The BLS said employment increased in professional and business services, healthcare, and transportation and warehousing. Professional and business services added 70,000 jobs, substantially above that category’s recent monthly average. The report also revised August and September gains upward by a combined 84,000 jobs.

Those revisions matter because monthly payroll estimates are not fixed snapshots of economic reality. More complete information can materially alter the picture after the first publication. Anyone building a large market argument on a single month should therefore examine the trend and the revisions, not only the latest number.

Average hourly earnings for private-sector employees rose by 0.4% in October and 3.1% over 12 months, according to the same release. Wage developments can affect the inflation outlook, although inflation depends on many other factors including productivity, goods costs and service-sector conditions.

Why rates matter for risk assets

When investors expect a lower path for policy rates, the relative attraction of cash and short-duration interest-bearing assets may fall, potentially supporting risk assets. A stronger labour market can complicate that narrative by giving policymakers less reason to ease quickly. But the Fed’s response depends on the whole data set, not an automatic rule that more jobs always mean higher rates.

Bitcoin is not a conventional corporate security with earnings that can be discounted using a single valuation model. Even so, it trades within financial markets where leverage costs, dollar liquidity and investor risk appetite change with the broader macroeconomic environment. That connection can become particularly visible during sharp stock-market moves.

There is also a separate institutional channel. NewsBTC reported that spot Bitcoin ETFs suffered $398.6 million in net withdrawals on November 2, reflecting flows into and out of listed investment products. Those fund numbers are useful but do not show why each investor traded.

What happens next is an open question

Market commentary has linked recent cryptocurrency weakness to technology-stock volatility and changing interest-rate expectations. That can be a plausible interpretation of contemporaneous movements, but correlation is not proof of one exclusive cause. Leverage, derivatives positioning and crypto-specific events may be operating at the same time.

The important next readings include inflation releases, future employment revisions and Federal Reserve communications. Traders should also follow the distinction between network fundamentals and investment-market behaviour explored in NewsBTC’s hashrate coverage. A shift in financial conditions can affect market prices long before it changes the underlying protocol.

For now, October’s jobs report provides a firmer data point in the interest-rate debate. It does not supply a confident Bitcoin price target or a guaranteed forecast for the next Fed decision.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

Featured image: Eccles Building (Federal Reserve headquarters) in Washington, D.C. (illustrative building photograph; report concerns Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs data and Federal Reserve policy expectations). Photo: Robert Kennicott via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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IREN’s Bitcoin Mining Revenue Falls as AI Cloud Sales Nearly Triple

TL;DR: IREN reported $200 million in quarterly AI Cloud revenue, up from $71 million the previous quarter, while Bitcoin mining revenue fell from $67 million to $28 million. Its November 5 results underline how quickly some former mining-led businesses are shifting towards AI infrastructure — and how expensive that shift remains.

IREN’s latest quarterly results offer a particularly stark view of the transition taking place across publicly listed Bitcoin infrastructure companies. A November 5 filing with the SEC reports $200 million of AI Cloud revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, compared with $71 million in the preceding quarter.

Bitcoin mining revenue, meanwhile, dropped to $28 million from $67 million. Total revenue rose to $228 million from $137 million, meaning the overall business expanded even as mining became a much smaller share of the total.

A different business is driving the growth

The company says AI Cloud revenue increased 182% sequentially and reported an 86% segment gross margin. That is a large change in a single quarter, supported by data-centre capacity coming online and customer contracts. But the term ‘gross margin’ is not a synonym for cash profit after financing, corporate expenses, depreciation and the capital needed to build the infrastructure.

IREN reported a net loss of $263 million for the September quarter, compared with a loss of $684 million in the preceding quarter. Adjusted EBITDA rose to $66 million from $19 million. The coexistence of strong revenue growth and a substantial accounting loss is precisely why neither metric should be read on its own.

The company said its revenue backlog increased to $20.3 billion, about two-thirds of it associated with investment-grade counterparties. A backlog is a contractual forward-looking figure subject to delivery schedules and contract terms; it is not cash already in the bank.

A timing change illustrates delivery risk

Management said a target of more than $4 billion in annual recurring revenue is fully contracted and funded, but its timetable moved from the end of 2026 to January 2027 following a customer-requested design change and supplier timing. It said completion could extend into February. The distinction between contracted and operating capacity matters especially when large AI computing clusters depend on specialist components and commissioning schedules.

IREN highlighted the Horizon 1 facility entering service for Microsoft and said it had signed additional contracts after quarter-end. Its filing also described planned remaining fiscal-year capital spending and the financing it expects to use. Investors should compare the timing of expenditure with when customer payments are due rather than assuming a huge order book removes funding risks.

The trend resembles the shift described in NewsBTC’s wider examination of Bitcoin miners and AI infrastructure. However, each operator has its own contracting arrangements, retained mining fleet, power infrastructure and financial obligations.

Does a mining decline mean the network is weaker?

Not necessarily. IREN’s lower mining revenue tells us about one company’s business mix, not the aggregate computing power securing Bitcoin. Network difficulty, global hashrate and other miners’ decisions could move in different directions. NewsBTC’s reporting on hashrate competition is a useful counterpoint to the corporate story.

The next disclosures worth examining are realised AI revenue, actual data-centre commissioning, customer concentration, financing terms and remaining exposure to Bitcoin mining. IREN’s results show the transformation is already reflected in its income statement. Whether the economics produce durable shareholder returns depends on far more than the speed of this quarter’s revenue growth.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

Featured image: Rows of server racks in a data centre (illustrative data-centre photograph only — does NOT depict an actual IREN, TeraWulf, or BitFuFu facility). Photo: Victor Grigas / Wikimedia Foundation via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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