State of Ether ETFs One Month After Debut vs. Bitcoin
A little over a month has passed since the highly anticipated US debut of Ether ETFs, but investors still lack enthusiasm, with much less euphoria surrounding them as compared to Bitcoin ETFs.
Withdrawals from the nine exchange-traded funds holding the second-largest cryptocurrency directly continued for the eight day running on Monday, the worst losing stretch since the fund's inception on July 23.
Data from Farside Investors shows that US ETFs holding the crypto benchmark Bitcoin had daily net inflows during that period, save for Monday, when there was an outflow of $21.5 million, following inflows of over $250 million the day before.
In contrast to the historic January debut of Bitcoin ETFs, the Ether ETFs were somewhat more subdued.
A fortnight later, the value of the biggest cryptocurrency in the world reached an all-time high.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence, only two Bitcoin ETFs — one from BlackRock and one from Fidelity — attracted over $3 billion in the first 20 days of trading.
For the digital asset sector, which has long been at odds with authorities over the distribution of funds physically backed by Bitcoin and Ether, the highly anticipated launch of crypto ETFs in the US represented a turning point.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave eight issuers the go-ahead in July.
Among them were BlackRock, Invesco, and Fidelity Investments.
Due mainly to the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, which was transformed into an ETF from an existing fund from which investors have consistently withdrawn funds, Ether ETFs had net withdrawals of millions of dollars in the first three weeks of trading.
There has been a net withdrawal of around $458 million from the Ether ETFs.
Bloomberg Intelligence reports that US spot Ether ETFs had a net withdrawal of $1 million from investors on Thursday.
Additionally, the trading volume for Ether ETFs was the lowest it has been since they launched.
Still, no matter what happens with the ETF's withdrawals, it will only affect a tiny fraction of the market.
The reason is that only about 2% of Ether's market value comes from ETF funds.
The rally in the global markets on Friday, spurred by Powell's remarks, sent Ether soaring as much as 4% to $2,730.