Boomers are throwing Bitcoin a lifeline.
Over the past five days, presumably elderly investors have bought up $1.5 billion in spot Bitcoin ETFs. For Balchunas, they are keeping the top crypto afloat in spite of galloping geopolitical tensions and a staggering 50% drawdown from its October 2025 highs.
“Boomers to the rescue again,” Eric Balchunas, a Bloomberg Intelligence ETF expert, said on X on Tuesday. It’s the “biggest haul in a while,” he added, as nearly every one of the ten original spot Bitcoin ETFs saw action.
“This is after a 50%(!) drawdown and most underwater. Even I’m impressed.”
Why are market watchers so shocked? To start, many didn’t expect ETF investors to be such staunch buyers of Bitcoin.
Since crypto has always been deemed an asset that younger generations alone understand, baby boomers — the generation of persons born between 1946 and 1964 — weren’t going to get it, or feel comfortable enough to buy it.
But the exact opposite has happened. Indeed, while many Bitcoin investors rushed for the exits amid yet another bull-to-bear market downturn, buyers of spot Bitcoin ETFs have mostly stayed put and gone long.
Bitcoin ETFs hold more than $107 billion worth of Bitcoin, according to DefiLlama. Moreover, institutions now control 12% of the network’s entire supply.
Unflinching institutions
Don’t be fooled by the boomer quip.
While Balchunas used the generational shorthand to describe steady ETF buying, there’s another story cooking: unflinching institutional accumulation.
Since October, 17 of the top 25 largest Bitcoin ETF holders have added to their positions during the same period, according to Zac Townsend, CEO of Meanwhile, a Bitcoin insurance firm.
While many retail traders chase short-term profits, institutions are allocating — in droves and for the long-run.
That’s something that other ETF experts had already highlighted, in fact, despite the nearly 50% downturn and yet another military conflict in the Middle East.
“ETF investors clearly aren’t panicking,” said Nate Geraci, co-founder of the ETF Institute.
