In today’s Bitcoin ETF news, Goldman Sachs quietly liquidated its entire XRP ETF and Solana ETF positions in the first quarter of 2026, according to the firm’s latest 13F filing, a complete exit from two products it had only just begun gaining exposure to months earlier, while at the same time, BTC ETF products saw nearly $1 billion in outflows in the past 24 hours.
XRP is trading around $1.38, while Solana is trading near $85, both nursing weekly losses amid volatile macroeconomic backdrop. The real question is not whether Goldman’s decision is significant. The question is what this actually means and whether retail investors holding these assets should change anything right now.
Uh-oh… Goldman Sachs completely dumped its $XRP exposure.
Filings for the first quarter of 2026 show that banking giant Goldman Sachs has completely removed its exposure to both @Ripple And @Solana $ SOL ETFs.
According to Wu Blockchain, it once held a staggering $154 million. $XRP ETFs… pic.twitter.com/NRLzHdirU2
– BSCN (@BSCNews) May 18, 2026
The bad news for crypto ETFs doesn’t stop there: the various Bitcoin ETF products have seen significant outflows over the past 48 hours, bringing total outflows since May 16 to just under $1 billion.
Bitcoin USD has felt the effects of these outflows, dropping from $82,000 to around $77,000 since last Friday. In the same time frame, the total crypto market cap lost over $100 billion, falling to $2.65 trillion.
(SOURCE: TradingView)
Bitcoin ETF News: What Goldman’s Exit Really Tells Us
Let’s start with the mechanics. A 13F filing is a quarterly disclosure that institutional investment managers with more than $100 million in assets must submit to the SEC. It’s essentially a snapshot of what they held at the end of a given quarter, and Goldman’s filing for Q1 2026 shows zero XRP ETF positions and zero Solana ETF positions, down from about $154 million in XRP ETF exposure at the end of Q4 2025. That’s a net exit, not a reduction.
Goldman had acted quickly when launching these products. The Spot XRP and Solana ETFs only arrived in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2025, and Goldman wasted no time, spreading $154 million across four XRP products from Bitwise, Franklin, Grayscale, and 21Shares, making it the largest disclosed institutional investor in the Spot XRP ETFs at the time. The fact that he liquidated everything in one quarter deserves serious examination and not dismissal.
But here’s the structural nuance: Goldman hasn’t abandoned crypto. The same filing shows the company holds multiple iShares Ethereum Trust positions worth approximately $114 million, $60 million, and $3.4 million, respectively, plus a separate iShares Staked Ethereum Trust position worth approximately $66.9 million.
He also held hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin through the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. What has changed is the level of risk; Goldman has moved away from newer, thinner altcoin ETPs and into Circle, Coinbase and Galaxy Digital, a classic “picks and shovels” pivot to crypto infrastructure rather than direct token exposure.
(SOURCE: CoinGlass)
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Can Bitcoin Price Recover Above $78,000 This Week?
Bitcoin is currently consolidating just above the $77,000 level after hitting a weekend low between $75,600 and $76,500. This $77,000 area became the immediate battleground.
It represents clustered stop-loss orders and a psychologically significant round number that bulls must defend to avoid a deeper return to 2021 levels.
Resistance now sits at $78,000, a level that BTC has failed to recover recently, with $80,000 and the $82,000 to $84,000 band representing higher conviction recovery targets.
This is how $BTC the bottom will most likely form this cycle. pic.twitter.com/s4vvj4lx9h
– Ted (@TedPillows) May 18, 2026
Three scenarios seem most plausible given current levels.
In the bull case, BTC holds $77,000, ETF outflows from nearly $1 billion reverse, and a recovery to $78,000 sets the stage for a return toward $80,000 and beyond.
The base case sees prices moving sideways in the $76,000-$78,000 range, while macroeconomic uncertainty keeps conviction moderate. Low trader conviction near key resistance has been a recurring theme in recent weeks.
The bearish case and the scenario that would confirm a deeper correction involve a net loss of the band of $75,000 to $76,000; Below, the April 2025 low near $74,500 and longer-term support around $69,000, the 2021 cycle high, are highlighted.
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The article Bitcoin ETF News: Nearly $1 Billion in Outflows in Past 24 Hours appeared first on 99Bitcoins.
