Cash is draining out of digital asset investment products, including spot Bitcoin ETFs, as the coin’s price clings to previous all-time highs amid global economic headwinds.
These investments have now seen outflows for three weeks straight, losing $435 million over the past seven days alone, according to data from CoinShares. Month-to-date outflows now stand at $102 million across coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.
“We've seen a slowdown of inflows from new ETF issuers in the United States,” CoinShares Head of Research James Butterfill affirmed to Decrypt. “They are still seeing inflows, but they're less than before.”
Outflows from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust have subsided recently, but Butterfill said the near-constant trickle of cash leaving the firm’s $19 billion fund has overshadowed incremental inflows seen by other funds, which debuted on Wall Street in January.
For example, spot Bitcoin ETFs posted net outflows of $328 million last week, according to data from Farside Investors. At the same time, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust alone saw $454 million in outflows—far outweighing any allocations to the group as a whole during that period.
After surpassing its previous all-time high in March, The price of Bitcoin has fallen 12% over the past month to $63,000, according to CoinGecko data. The dip comes as traders focus on the Federal Reserve and how strong economic data in the U.S. could influence monetary policy in the coming months amid signs of stubborn inflation.
“For a while this year, it was all about ETFs,” Butterfill said. “I think the interest rate narrative is definitely having more of an influence on prices recently.”
The Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady at its policy meeting this week, but market participants will be on the lookout for dovish or hawkish tones. Risk assets, which typically benefit from lower borrowing costs, have been dented as traders’ expectations on when interest rate cuts could occur have been pushed further out.
A 71-day streak of inflows for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF was also derailed last week as Bitcoin’s price fell. After pulling in $17.5 billion worth of Bitcoin since its January approval, BlackRock’s ETF saw three straight days of no inflows—or outflows, for that matter.
Even though there has been a noticeable decrease in momentum for spot Bitcoin ETFs, Butterfill said it’s not “necessarily that concerning,” considering digital asset investment products have had their best year on record, with $13 billion in inflows, so far.
That’s not to say market participants in the U.S. have fully digested spot Bitcoin ETFs, either, with some analysts expecting inflows to pick up again as the year progresses.
In a note to clients, Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra wrote Monday that slowing inflows indicate a “short-term pause before ETFs become more integrated with private bank platforms, wealth advisors, and even more brokerage platforms.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.