2026 has been an interesting and unexpected year in terms of investments. Gold and silver started the year strong with massive gains and new all-time highs, while Bitcoin traded mostly bearish.
While Bitcoin’s correction intensified after January’s rejection at the $95,000 level, the two largest precious metals also fell. Perhaps a large portion of gold’s losses can be attributed to how investors turned to the largest ETF that tracks its performance.
Will GLD be able to make a comeback?
Data provided by analysts in Kobesi’s letter indicated that the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, the World Gold Council’s GLD, has seen a significant exodus of investors that began in March this year. In just the third month of the year, the financial instrument lost $8.5 billion. This became the largest monthly draw in GLD’s 22-year history.
This worrying trend eased somewhat in the following months, but red continued to dominate. Investors withdrew $1.7 billion in April, $872 million in May, and $3.2 billion in June. Mid-July data shows that withdrawals have fallen below $50 million, leading analysts to speculate whether the gold market is “preparing for a comeback.”
Urgent: The largest exchange-traded fund in the United States is backed by gold, $GLDIt recorded outflows of $14.4 billion since March 1.
This is 50% more than the $9.6 billion outflows seen across all Bitcoin ETFs since their peak in October.
In March alone, investors withdrew $8.5 billion from… $GLDthe… pic.twitter.com/0Wvwlqxpxi
– Al Qubaisi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 16, 2026
These net outflows coincided with the collapse of gold prices. Gold peaked at $5,600 an ounce in late January, but has lost nearly 30% of its value since then, falling to $4,000 an ounce as of Friday’s close.
BTC ETFs are also bleeding
With nearly $130 billion in assets under management, GLD is bigger than anything else Spot Bitcoin ETFs total. As such, it is difficult to compare the respective net outflows. However, the ongoing narrative is that investors have turned against Bitcoin, which is supported by the latter Negative line Which started in May.
In about two months, investors withdrew just over $8 billion from all Bitcoin ETFs, pushing total cumulative net inflows to $51.22 billion from $59.34 billion. June was the worst month, with over $4.5 billion in funds leaving, which was more than the GLD exodus.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the price performance of the underlying asset has been quite painful over this time frame. Bitcoin was rejected at $83,000 when the pullback began in mid-May, and fell to a multi-year low of $57,700 on July 1. Although they have since regained some ground, the behavior of ETFs remains too uncertain to support a deeper rally.
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