Spot Bitcoin ETF Flows Dry Up as Crypto Market Rout Continues

For the second trading day in a row, nine of the eleven newly launched spot Bitcoin ETFs have had a fund flow of zero.

Only Grayscale and BlackRock have had flows on April 12 and 15 as every other fund was inactive, according to preliminary data from Farside Investors.

The continued outflow of funds from Grayscale’s GBTC also means that the net aggregate has flipped negative again for the last two trading days.

General crypto asset investment products have also been outflowing, losing $126 million over the past week, according to CoinShares.

Don’t get your hopes up guys. This is a $110.1 million OUT flow for the day. lol https://t.co/KEJ2v5JZox

— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) April 15, 2024

ETF Flows Stagnating

BlackRock’s industry-leading IBIT fund continues to keep crypto ETF markets buoyed with inflows, however, these are shrinking. On April 15, IBIT saw an inflow of $73.4 million, the fourth double-digit inflow this month.

However, this wasn’t enough to negate the $110 million outflow from GBTC, which resulted in a net outflow of $36.7 million for all Bitcoin ETFs yesterday.

Grayscale’s flagship fund has now hemorrhaged 308,379 BTC worth around $19 billion at current prices. This equates to around half of the total BTC the fund held before it converted to a spot ETF in mid-January.

Fidelity’s FBTC fund had another zero flow day, ending its inflow streak on Friday.

Nevertheless, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju pointed out that despite ETF demand stagnating over the past month, “on-chain accumulation remains very active, even when excluding ETF settlement transactions.”

#Bitcoin ETF demand has stagnated for 4 weeks, yet on-chain accumulation remains very active, even when excluding ETF settlement transactions. pic.twitter.com/PqMTzJrAym

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) April 16, 2024

The big ETF news this week was the approval of spot BTC and ETH ETFs in Hong Kong, which “serves as a testbed for China money to enter the system,” said Boxmining founder Michael Gu.

“US spot Bitcoin ETFs have more assets than the entire HK ETF market,” commented ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

Crypto Correction Continues

Nevertheless, the news from the Far East wasn’t enough to reverse the current market pullback, which has seen total capitalization shrink by a further 3.8% on the day.

The total cap is now at its lowest level since late February, falling to $2.5 trillion.

Bitcoin shed another 1.8% in a fall to $63,000 at the time of writing during Tuesday’s Asian trading session.

Ethereum was down 2% at $3,100 and many of the altcoins were getting hit harder. These include Solana (SOL) smashed 8%, and Toncoin (TON) dumping 7% on the day.