Bitcoin Funds Lose $480 Million in a Week, But Grayscale Withdrawals Slowing

Crypto Breaking News

January 29

A lot of cash left big Bitcoin funds in the last seven days—which could explain the dip that BTC and most other digital assets took last week.

The good news? Outflows from the largest fund, Grayscale, are now slowing down, according to European digital asset manager CoinShares.

Investors have been fast redeeming their Grayscale holdings since the product converted to an exchange-traded fund (ETF) earlier this month. This led to the price of Bitcoin (BTC) to drop hard as the fund shifted its cryptocurrency to its custodian Coinbase.

"The outflows in Grayscale last week totalled $2.2 billion, although data suggests outflows are beginning to subside as the daily total continued to reduce over the week," the CoinShares report said.

It added that investors pulled out over $500 million from major crypto fund managers—such as Bitwise, Fidelity, Grayscale, ProShares and 21Shares. The main focus was on BTC.

But despite the money flowing out of these big funds, a lot of money did enter the newly minted Bitcoin ETFs in the states. "In stark contrast, newly issued U.S. ETFs saw inflows totalling $1.8 billion last week, and since launch on January 11, 2024 have seen $5.94 billion of inflows," the report said.

The historic approval and subsequent trading of 10 BTC ETFs on Wall Street has led investors to flock to the products. The rush is in part due to pent up demand. Before the eventual approval, U.S. regulators blocked the creation of spot Bitcoin ETFs for a decade.

But despite the interest in the investment vehicles—which give people exposure to the biggest digital asset in a safe and regulated way—the price of BTC hasn't really moved.

It rose quickly on the news of the approval before dipping as investors cashed out of Grayscale. Prior to Grayscale being converted to an ETF, investors had to hold their shares for at least six months before they could sell them. The lock-up policy was the center of a recently dropped lawsuit filed by bankrupt crypto exchange FTX as it's been trying to up its cash reserves.

BTC is now trading for $41,872 per coin, having now made a bit of a recovery and risen by more than 2% over the week, according to CoinGecko. Over the past 30 days, it hasn't budged.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.