Investor Jitters on Merge Prompt Ethereum Outflows

Takeaways

• Digital asset investment products saw outflows totalling US$63m, the 5th consecutive week of outflows.
• The outflows remain relatively small in size, totalling US$99m over the last 5 weeks, while volumes remain only 46% of this year’s average at US$1bn for the week.
• Ethereum was the primary focus of the outflows, totalling US$62m last week, this comes despite the improved certainty of the Merge and perhaps highlights a concern amongst investors that the event might not go as planned.

Digital asset investment products saw outflows totalling US$63m, the 5th consecutive week of outflows when taking into consideration of the negative sentiment inferred by last week’s inflow into short-bitcoin investment products. The outflows remain relatively small in size, totalling US$99m over the last 5 weeks, while volumes remain only 46% of this year’s average at US$1bn for the week. Despite the uptick in prices on Friday, it was the largest day of outflows.

Regionally the outflows were focussed on Canada and the US which saw outflows totalling US$60m and US$10m respectively. While Europe was the contrarian with inflows totalling US$7m.

Ethereum was the primary focus of the outflows, totalling US$62m last week, this comes despite the improved certainty of the Merge (expected to be on or around 15th September) and perhaps highlights a concern amongst investors that the event might not go as planned. We have written about this extensively and do not expect there to be any issues.

Bitcoin saw a 5th consecutive week of outflows totalling US$13m, while short-bitcoin investment products saw inflows totalling US$11m highlighting continued negative sentiment.

Altcoins saw inflows totalling US$1m, most notably from Polygon and Cardano with US$0.4m each.

Contact James Butterfill at [email protected]