Investors pulled around $168 million from nine U.S. Bitcoin ETFs on Monday. In just two days, these Bitcoin ETFs saw $405 million in withdrawals, according to Farside Investors.
Meanwhile, Ethereum ETFs had a better time, with nearly $49 million flowing into them during the same period.
Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF (GBTC) and Fidelity’s Bitcoin fund (FBTC) saw the biggest withdrawals, with about $69 million taken out from each. On the flip side, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC), which is a cheaper alternative to GBTC, gained nearly $29 million. Bitwise’s Bitcoin ETF (BITB) and Valkyrie’s Bitcoin fund (BRRR) also saw some positive movement, each adding around $6 million.
Other Bitcoin ETFs, like BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), didn’t see much change.
Trading volumes were high, with U.S. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs collectively trading nearly $6 billion on Monday. Bitcoin ETFs made up over $5 billion of that. IBIT and FBTC were the most active in trading. Spot Ethereum ETFs, led by Grayscale’s and BlackRock’s funds, contributed about $715 million to the total trading volume.
Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, noted that high trading volumes during market dips indicate investor worry. He suggested that having lots of liquidity (easy-to-buy-and-sell assets) is good for traders and could be beneficial for ETFs in the long run.
BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF (ETHA) saw $47 million in new investments on August 5. VanEck’s and Fidelity’s Ethereum ETFs together attracted nearly $33 million. Bitwise’s and Grayscale’s Ethereum Mini Trust also gained some money. However, Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust (ETHE) had $47 million in outflows, marking the largest withdrawal since it became an ETF. Over the past ten trading days, ETHE has seen more than $2.1 billion in outflows.
Despite this, there are still around 234 million ETHE shares valued at about $4.7 billion. The recent drop in the crypto market started on August 4 when Jump Trading moved a lot of Ether to exchanges, causing a sharp market correction. Bitcoin briefly fell below $50,000, and Ethereum dropped more than 20% in a day.
As of the latest updates, Bitcoin has partly recovered to around $54,000, and Ethereum has rebounded by 6% to trade above $2,400.
Last week, digital asset investments experienced $528 million in outflows, marking the first decline in four weeks. This drop is thought to be due to worries about a potential U.S. recession and geopolitical uncertainties, which led to widespread sell-offs in various asset markets. Additionally, the Bank of Japan’s decision to raise interest rates for the first time in 17 years has increased anxiety in riskier markets, leading to more sell-offs.