Bitcoin leads the pack as crypto outflows mark 5 weeks

Posted: September 19, 2023

• Digital asset investment products saw outflows of almost $60 million last week.
• Bitcoin accounted for 85% of all funds withdrawn.

Digital asset investment products recorded outflows totaling $54 million last week, marking the fifth consecutive week of outflows, digital asset investment firm CoinShares found in a new report.

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

As the report highlighted, liquidity worth $455 million had been removed from crypto exchange-traded products for eight out of the last nine weeks. 

This suggested that crypto market participants mostly harbored bearish sentiments toward the assets that comprise the investment category. As a result, year-to-date (YTD) net inflows fell below $100 million, CoinShares noted.

Notably, Germany, Canada, and Sweden also experienced negative sentiment. However, investors in the USA accounted for 77% of all crypto fund outflows last week. The predominant negative sentiment in the USA could be primarily attributable to the ongoing regulatory uncertainty surrounding crypto in the region. 

Despite recent setbacks in court, in his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on 12 September, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler reiterated his view that crypto assets are securities and should be regulated by his agency.

According to Mr. Gensler:

“There is nothing about the crypto asset securities markets that suggests that investors and issuers are less deserving of the protections of our securities laws…Given that most crypto tokens are subject to the securities laws, it follows that most crypto intermediaries have to comply with securities laws as well.”

Bitcoin suffers the most

Bitcoin [BTC] investment products saw the removal of $45 million last week from crypto funds, accounting for almost 90% of the total outflows recorded. With the leading coin registering only outflows since the month began, last week’s liquidity exit brought the coin’s month-to-date outflows to $118 million.

Further, the coin’s YTD net inflows continued to plummet weekly as sentiment grew poorer. Last week, BTC’s YTD net inflows fell to $155 million, down from $200 million the previous week.

Following 19 weeks of consecutive outflows, Short-Bitcoin products recorded “its largest single week of inflows since March 2023” in the previous week. However, this “proved to be short-lived,” as the asset category saw outflows of $3.8m last week.

However, despite recent troubles,

“It remains the most loved investment product with month-to-date inflows at US$12m.”

Ethereum takes a backseat

While other leading altcoins posted inflows, leading altcoin Ethereum [ETH] witnessed withdrawals amounting to $4.8 million. This brought its YTD outflows to $118 million.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the BTC Profit Calculator

CoinShares opined that the liquidity exit occurred,

“Despite what we believe are attractive investment fundamentals and high demand for its staking yield.”

The report further found that,

“Other altcoins, such as Binance and Polygon, saw minor outflows of US$0.3m each. Some altcoins continue to buck the trend, with Solana, Cardano, and XRP all seeing inflows of US$0.7m, US$0.43m, and US$0.13m, respectively.”