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Crypto investors cool on Bitcoin funds, turning to Ether and XRP

Bitcoin-related funds saw outflows of $13 million over the past week, reversing five weeks of bullish inflows, according to Coinshares analyst James Butterfill.

Bitcoin-related investment products appear to have lost some of their sheen among crypto investors, recording its first week of outflows since Blackrock filed for spot Bitcoin ETF in June.

According to a July 24 report by CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, Bitcoin (BTC) investment products saw outflows of $13 million for the week ending July 21, reversing five weeks of inflows.

Short Bitcoin products also saw outflows of $5.5 million in the week.

In contrast, Ethereum (ETH) and XRP (XRP) investment products recorded combined inflow of $9.2 million over the last week.

Butterfill noted that Ethereum investment products were the best performer last week with inflows of $6.6 million, while XRP funds recorded an inflow of $2.6 million. Other altcoins, such as Solana (SOL) and Polygon (MATIC) tracked inflows of $1.1 million and $0.7 million respectively.

Flows by the top digital asset investment products. Source: CoinShares.

The apparent change of heart follows Ripple’s partial victory against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on July 13, where the court ruled that XRP isn’t a security when sold on exchanges to the general public.

The news spiked XRP’s price up 76% to $0.83 before cooling off to $0.69 at the time of writing.

Related: BlackRock ETF will be ‘big rubber yes stamp’ for Bitcoin — Charles Edwards

Bitcoin however still remains the dominant digital asset investment product, with $558 million in inflows so far in 2023 and a total of $25.0 billion in assets under management — amounting to 67.4% of the total market share.

BTC is currently priced at $29,128, down 3.1% over the last 24 hours.

Over the last month, a host of financial institutions have filed for Bitcoin spot Exchange Traded Fund applications with the SEC since mid-June, including BlackRock, ARK Invest, Fidelity, Galaxy Digital, VanEck, Valkyrie Investments, NYDIG, SkyBridge and WisdomTree.

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$89M flows into Bitcoin funds despite looming conflict, but ETH funds are negative

CoinShares noted that despite “price weakness and perceived negative impact from the looming conflict in Eastern Europe,” digital asset investment products saw inflows totaling $109 last week.

Amid a marketwide downturn across major crypto assets over the past week, institutional traders tipped almost $89 million into Bitcoin (BTC) funds. However, the money men failed to ba Ethereum (ETH) investment products, which saw outflows totaling $15.2 million.

Despite Cointelegraph reporting earlier this week that activity on the Bitcoin network was down 30% since its ATH levels three months ago, digital gold appears to be the asset of choice for sophisticated investors of late.

According to CoinShares’ Feb. 22 “Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly” report, BTC funds have now pulled in a total of $178.3 million this month following the latest $89 million influx between Feb. 14 and Feb. 18.

In comparison, Ether investment products offering have now seen total outflows of $2.6 million in February so far, and have only generated inflows in one of the past 11 weeks.

Over the past seven days, the price of BTC has dipped 14.6% to sit at roughly $38,000, while Ether has dropped 16.2% to $2,668 at the time of writing. Other top assets such as Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Ripple (XRP) have also suffered double-digit losses.

CoinShares noted that despite “price weakness and perceived negative impact from the looming conflict in Eastern Europe,” digital asset investment products in general saw inflows totaling $109 last week.

Outside of Bitcoin’s dominance, institutional traders also snapped up $25 million worth of investment products tied to Ethereum competitor Avalanche, while multi-asset and Solana funds also saw notable inflows of $9.4 million and $1.2 million each.

“Following the run of outflows in January, the latest data marks the 5th week of inflows. While inflows were seen in both Europe and the Americas, it was predominantly the latter with inflows totaling US$101M."

Related: Bitcoin price could ‘probe lower’ as volumes dip and macroeconomic issues loom overhead

In terms of the institutional asset managers and fund providers, CoinShares XBT fund shed $21.6 million, while Purpose and ProShares saw inflows of $63.2 million and $26.6 million respectively.

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Institutional investors bought the dip as China FUD broke

While institutional Bitcoin products have experienced outflows for 13 of the past 17 weeks, the sector has now seen three straight weeks of inflows.

Institutional investors were buying the dip on the back of China’s latest FUD, with digital asset investment products generating $95 million worth of inflows last week.

According to CoinShares’ Sept. 27 Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, a surge in dip buying helped drive a sixth consecutive week of inflows for institutional crypto investment products broadly.

The $95 million worth of inflows between Sept. 20 and Sept. 24 marks a 126% weekly inflows increase. BTC and Ether investment products led the pack with $50.2 million and $28.9 million worth of inflows respectively.

While BTC investment products have seen outflows in 13 of the past 17 weeks, positive sentiment towards the asset rose during September as inflows were recorded for the past three weeks. Inflows to Bitcoin products also increased by 234% week-over-week.

Institutional appetites for altcoins appears to remain strong, with products tracking Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT) posting inflows of $3.9 million, $2.6 million and $2.4 million respectively. Multi-asset funds also saw inflows of $6.4 million this past week.

Related: Crypto has recovered from China's FUD over a dozen times in the last 12 years

The great wall of FUD

On Sept. 24 the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) published a memo announcing a ban on all crypto transactions that triggered an 8% dip in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) along with a wider pullback across the crypto market.

The PBOC’s updated measures — which were initially published on Sept. 3 before it was picked up by western media outlets last week — outlined that financial institutions and payment firms are barred from providing any services related to crypto transactions.

While FUD from Chinese regulators has historically impacted crypto markets, it has also served as a catalyst for surging prices or bull runs in the subsequent months following the announcements.

In September of 2017, China’s government banned crypto exchanges from offering services to users in the country, while also barring citizens from participating in initial coin offers. Following the double-ban, the price of BTC made the historic climb from the $4,000 range to a then all-time high price of around $20,000.

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