Bitcoin trades at $77,905, up 1.75%

Bitcoin traded around $77,905 on Thursday, May 21, according to market posts on X and live price trackers, extending a modest daily gain while traders pointed to exchange-traded-fund flow data and relative weakness in Ethereum. Crypto.com showed bitcoin at $77,949.91, up 1.69%, while CoinMarketCap listed the token near $77,487 in intraday trading. A May 21 post from the X account @keizai_sokuho put bitcoin at $77,904.99, up 1.75% from the previous close, alongside gains in the Nikkei and gold. A separate May 21 post from Santiment said bitcoin remained the market’s most-discussed large token, citing custody, ETF attention and liquidity, while Ethereum was seeing capital rotation and outflows and Solana was drawing unusually heavy perpetuals activity. (crypto.com) ### Why were traders talking about ETF flows alongside the bitcoin move? U.S. spot bitcoin ETF trackers showed mixed institutional demand on May 21 rather than a broad surge. Gate’s market tracker listed daily net flows at minus 117.19 BTC, with total assets of $106.87 billion and cumulative net inflows of 730,500 BTC across the products. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, trading under IBIT, remained the largest fund in that table with about $66.56 billion in assets under management, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC at roughly $14.06 billion and Grayscale’s GBTC at about $11.54 billion. (financefeeds.com) Those figures help explain why ETF flow commentary remains central to short-term bitcoin trading even on days when price moves are relatively contained. (gate.com) ### Was ethereum actually seeing outflows? Ethereum ETF data showed recent withdrawals, though not every daily reading was negative. CoinMarketCap’s Ethereum ETF page showed net flow of minus $62.30 million for May 18, while its three-month figure was negative $41.80 million. Farside Investors also maintained a separate Ethereum ETF flow page on Thursday, which market participants commonly use to track U.S.-listed fund subscriptions and redemptions. (gate.com) The available trackers therefore supported the broader market claim that Ethereum fund flows had been softer than bitcoin’s over recent sessions, even if daily totals can vary by source and update time. ### What was behind the Solana volume comparison? (coinmarketcap.com) Solana-based perpetual futures venues crossed a fresh threshold this week. FinanceFeeds reported that weekly trading volume across Solana perpetual decentralized exchanges reached $20 billion during the week of May 18, describing it as a record for that market segment. (farside.co.uk) That figure matched the comparison circulating in crypto commentary on May 21, where traders contrasted bitcoin’s steadier, ETF-linked bid with more speculative activity in Solana derivatives. Separate market summaries also said the weekly surge followed a daily spike in perp trading on Solana venues earlier in the week. (financefeeds.com) ### How does the cash price compare across major trackers? Live pricing services clustered in a narrow band on Thursday afternoon. CoinMarketCap showed bitcoin near $77,487, while Crypto.com listed $77,949.91, a gap that reflected different update times and exchange inputs rather than a disagreement over direction. The broader picture was that bitcoin remained below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,198.07 on CoinMarketCap, but was still trading with a market capitalization above $1.5 trillion and 24-hour volume above $25 billion. (studioglobal.ai) ### What should traders watch next? U.S. ETF flow services including Farside, CoinGlass and fund-specific trackers typically refresh after the trading session, giving the next read on whether May 21’s bitcoin gain attracted fresh allocations or remained mostly a spot-market move. (coinmarketcap.com) CoinGlass’s crypto ETF overview page showed its latest market update as May 19, indicating some public dashboards can lag by a day or more. (coinglass.com)