Bitcoin Funds Saw $110 Million Weekly Outflows

Institutional investors reduced exposure to crypto investment products last week, as ETF activity dipped to 31% of total volumes last week.

Last week’s volatility may have sparked caution among some investors, as digital asset investment products recorded a week of outflows.

On the whole, digital asset investment products recorded $126 million outflows, with bitcoin-related funds alone recording $110 million in outflows, data from CoinShares shows. 

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShare, dubbed the outflows “minor,” but noted that investors were seemingly hesitant after bitcoin’s positive price momentum appeared to stall.

“Volumes did pick up a little from US$17bn to US$21bn week-on-week, but ETP/ETF activity dropped relative to the overall market, from 40% of total volumes on trusted exchanges over the last month to 31% last week, demonstrating this caution amongst investors,” said Butterfill.

Things seem to be slowing down on the ETF front, with all spot bitcoin ETFs recording $36.7 million worth of daily outflows on Monday. Grayscale’s GBTC led the exodus of funds, with $110 million worth of outflows, with cumulative outflows being offset marginally by the $73.4 million in inflows for BlackRock’s IBIT ETF – the only fund to record inflows on the day.

Yesterday’s ETF flows by @FarsideUK

We had another negative day with $36.7 million of outflows.

All of this was of course coming from $GBTC with $110.1 million outflows.

Blackrock was the only ETF that had any inflows, which was $73.4 million.

Overall sentiment is quite bad.… pic.twitter.com/9Hriss4fd0

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) April 16, 2024

While altcoins had a mostly positive week, the same can’t be said for the leading altcoin ether, which suffered the most on a relative basis, seeing $29 million of outflows over the period. 

Solana was another popular altcoin that saw outflows, with SOL-based funds seeing $3.6 million withdrawn over the week. Meanwhile, funds tied to the native tokens of projects like Decentraland (MANA), Basic Attention Token (BAT) and Lido (LDO) saw inflows of $4.9 million, $2.9 million and $1.8 million respectively.