Bitcoin, Ethereum ETFs Receive Over $600 Million in New Cash—Are the Bulls Back?

In brief

Over the past week, investors been pulling money out of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.
But on Tuesday, they reversed course, putting a combined $618.9 million into the funds.
Experts told Decrypt that crypto markets path forward remains uncertain.

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Investors piled back into Bitcoin ETFs and their Ethereum counterparts Tuesday, reversing days of outflows, although the fresh investments failed to give the two largest cryptocurrencies by market value a long-lasting bump.

The price of the two biggest digital assets has in the past risen significantly when investors have bought shares of the American ETFs.

Investors sank about $477 million and $142 million into the Bitcoin and Ethereum funds, respectively, last week, according to U.K. asset manager Farside Investors.

Those funds hemorrhaged more than $1.4 billion in assets last week amid a crypto market slump in which BTC and ETH both dropped by 6%.

Analysts remain wary of digital assets' future price path as markets reckon with a re-escalation of the Trump administration's global trade war, inflation and economic worries, and other macroeconomic uncertainties. "It's likely too early to tell if this is the bottom though as wider markets are choppy, particularly gold," James Butterfill, global head of research at crypto asset manager CoinShares told Decrypt.

Gold, the traditional safe haven asset to which Bitcoin is sometimes compared, was down more than 1% on Wednesday a day after the precious metal registered the largest single-day decline in its history. Gold has hit multiple record highs in recent weeks as investors have turned more risk-averse.

Butterfill said that Bitcoin's "correction, and the subsequent liquidity cascades seen a week ago," are still reverberating through the industry, prompting some crypto-natives to further liquidate, adding that crypto market sentiment was generally bearish.

Bitcoin's price recently stood at $108,200, down nearly 3% over the past day, according to crypto markets data provider CoinGecko. BTC hit a new high of $126,080 at the start of the month before tumbling last week as investors liquidated over $19 billion in crypto futures positions liquidated.

ETH's price recently stood at nearly $3,821 per coin, down 5% from the same time, Tuesday. Over the past week, it dropped as low as $3,709.

Approved by the SEC last year, the ETFs allow traditional investors and even institutions to buy exposure to the cryptocurrencies via funds that trade on stock exchanges.

Sumit Roy, senior ETF analyst for ETF.com, told Decrypt that traders may not be finished unwinding their positions, although prices could also rally.

"The short-term trend—that began with the big liquidation event earlier this month—is down and traders might want to test the technical support in the $100,000 and $3,800 levels for BTC and ETH several times before there's either a sustainable rebound or a sharper move lower," he said.