Institutional Investors Cooling on Crypto as Weekly Outflows Top $120M

Digital asset manager CoinShares broke down the numbers in its weekly digital asset fund flows report released on May 3.

Capital has flown out of major crypto asset funds for four weeks in a row, and the total for the past seven days was $120.1 million. The total for the 4-week run was $339 million, according to the report.

There were similar outflows at the beginning of the year, but CoinShares said it has not been as bad just yet.

“This doesn’t reflect the same bearishness seen at the beginning of this year, although it is close to the $467m outflows witnessed.”

Bitcoin Funds Battered

The majority of those outflows were from Bitcoin-based funds resulting in the largest single week of outflows since June 2021, with $133 million exiting BTC funds.

The researchers said it was difficult to ascertain the exact reason for the exodus aside from the “hawkish rhetoric from the US Federal Reserve” and recent declines in the asset’s price.

Ethereum funds also saw outflows totaling $25 million last week, it added. So far this year, only five weeks have seen Ethereum outflows, and the year-to-date figure is $194 million.

Most of the altcoin-based funds also retreated, but multi-asset funds bucked the trend with a $1.9 million inflow for the period. There were also minor inflows for Terra and Fantom-based products. Only funds based on the FTX token saw measurable inflows with $38 million, CoinShares reported.

Geographically, things were evenly split, with the Americas comprising 41% and Europe 59% of the outflows. The ProShares group lost the most with $91 million leaving their funds, while ETH Group and 21Shares lost $35.5 million and $32.5 million, respectively. Purpose bucked the trend with an inflow of $54.7 million.

Total year-to-date fund flows are still in positive territory, however, at $270 million through with the current sentiment, that number is dwindling. CoinShares itself posted a decline in total revenue for Q1 of 42%.

Crypto Markets Keep Falling

Total crypto market capitalization has fallen to its lowest level since mid-March, according to CoinGecko. The big figure currently stands at $1.81 trillion, having lost a further 1.2% over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin dipped below $38,000 earlier today after losing a similar percentage, and Ethereum is now just below $2,800, having lost 1.8% on the day. All of the altcoins in the top twenty are in the red at the time of writing aside from NEAR, which is up 2.7% on the day.