Bitcoin Institutional Outflows Touch 4-Month High As BTC Struggles

Institution crypto investors seem to be rapidly pulling out of the market and Bitcoin was again the main focus, seeing the highest weekly outflow recorded since March. 

Effects Of A Lingering Bear Market?

The crypto summer doldrums have come out in full force and weekly trading volumes in investment products have experienced a remarkable 36% below the year-to-date average. The wider on-exchange market volumes have taken a bigger hit, having suffered more, falling 62% relative to the year-to-date average. 

Last week, 93% of weekly outflows were long Bitcoin investment products, while short Bitcoin investment products experienced their 14th successive week of outflows totaling $3.1 million. 

Bitcoin saw outflows within the region of $111 million. This was the largest since March when the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commenced regulatory investigations into cryptocurrency exchanges. 

Aside from Bitcoin, Ethereum also experienced outflows reaching $6 million, which brings the total outflows in both Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) to $117 million last week. 

Altcoins are not left out of the mix, and regionally, the outflows focused on two Exchange-Traded Product (ETP) providers in Germany and Canada, which recorded $71 million and $29 million, respectively in outflows. Uniswap and Cardano also saw outflows of $0.8 million and $0.3 million respectively.

However, records show that altcoins sentiments appear to be getting better and have helped to cushion the outflows in Ethereum and Bitcoin. Solana recorded the largest inflows, reaching $9.5 million, the biggest single week of inflows since March last year. 

Of worthy mention are XRP and Litecoin, with inflows of $0.5 million and $0.46 million, respectively.

A Comparative Outlook With Last Week’s Performance

This week’s digital asset investment product performances witnessed some major milestones. For instance, for the first time in about 14 weeks, outflows from Bitcoin shorts have stopped. 

Compared with the $1.5 billion weekly average recorded so far this year, last week’s trading volumes for digital assets products were notably low at $915 million. 

When compared regionally, the negative sentiments were majorly focused on North America, which saw outflows of $11 billion from both Canada and the United States. Germany recorded inflows of $5 million, while Switzerland and Sweden had outflows totaling $3.2 million and $2.6 million, respectively.