ETF flows are down but don’t signal investor panic

Bitcoin’s massive slump from a record price above $126,000 last October has darkened sentiment across the crypto landscape. Faith has been shaken in a trade that was viewed as a digital rival to gold as a store of value, and by some others as a risk-on asset that would continue to boom alongside a crypto-friendly Trump administration.

Since the all-time high price last October, bitcoin has lost almost half its value and its inability to bounce back in trading is increasing fears about another “crypto winter” — a prolonged slump similar to the time of the FTX crash in 2022 when bitcoin fell from near $50,000 to as low as $15,000. In the past month alone, bitcoin is down over 25%.

But crypto investing experts on the latest CNBC “ETF Edge” say a look at the recent flows into and out of bitcoin and crypto exchange-trade funds suggests that long-term investors are not abandoning the asset class. Money has certainly moved out, but they say not to a level that suggests long-term investor panic.

Over the past three months, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has seen approximately $2.8 billion in net outflows. That is substantial, but over the past year, the BlackRock ETF has attracted near $21 billion in net inflows, according to VettaFi. The broader spot bitcoin ETF category shows a similar pattern. Over the past three months, the ETF asset class has experienced roughly $5.8 billion in net outflows. Over the past year, across all spot bitcoin ETFs, net inflows remain positive by $14.2 billion. Money is exiting, but the majority of assets have remained in place, and some ETF experts say the money being pulled isn’t from the long-term investor or financial advisor that have begun allocating to the asset class.

“It’s not the ETF investors who are driving the sell off,” said Matt Hougan, Bitwise Asset Management CIO, on “ETF Edge.”

He says much of the broader pressure in bitcoin may be coming from crypto investors who accumulated positions over many years and are now trimming exposure. “It’s really a tale of two sides,” Hougan said. He also said there are hedge funds and short-term traders who use the most liquid ETFs as tools and may pull capital quickly when momentum turns negative.

At CNBC’s Digital Finance Forum last week, Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz said the crypto market’s “era of speculation” may be ending, and returns going forward will be more like a long-term investment holding. “It’s going to be real world assets with much lower returns,” he said at the CNBC event in New York City last Tuesday. “Retail people don’t get into crypto because they want to make 11% annualized,” he said. “They get in because they want to make 30 to one, eight to one, 10 to one.”

Financial advisors at Wall Street banks are among those adding bitcoin to investor portfolios, and adding their own branded crypto ETFs. And longer horizon investors who hold crypto as a small allocation within diversified portfolios may be willing to ride out volatility, Hougan said. If investors were capitulating across the board, the outflows over the past three months would likely approach the scale of the prior 12 months inflows.

Not that the ETF asset flow analysis makes it any easy of a period to stomach for a recent crypto investor. “It’s tough to be a bitcoin investor right now,” said Will Rhind, founder & CEO of ETF company GraniteShares on “ETF Edge.” He added that the performance of other “hard” assets, such as gold, has added to the bitcoin distress. For investors who have supported the “digital gold” concept, the bitcoin price crash has been unsettling. “This is not supposed to happen,” he said of a period of time when other safe haven assets perform strongly and bitcoin continues to drop. When bitcoin is going down nearly 50%, “gold’s not supposed to go to all time highs,” he said.

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