Cryptocurrency Sees Second Week of Outflows; Ether Posts Record Outflows

Cryptocurrency investment products and funds saw outflows for a second straight week, with Ether posting record outflows as institutional investors took a step back, data from digital asset manager CoinShares showed on Monday.

Total cryptocurrency ouflows hit $21 million (roughly Rs. 150 crores) for the week ending June 11. Since mid-May, total outflows reached $267 million (roughly Rs. 1,960 crores), representing 0.6 percent of total assets under management (AUM).

Ether, the token used in the Ethereum blockchain, posted its largest outflow last week of $12.7 million (roughly Rs. 93 crores), data showed. The token has been one of the strongest performers this year. Ether price in India stood at 1.9 lakhs as of 12pm IST on June 15.

But CoinShares said ether inflows last week were mixed, "implying mixed opinions among investors."

Ether was last up 1 percent on the day at $2,536 (roughly Rs. 1.8 lakhs). Since hitting a record $4,380.64 (roughly Rs. 3.2 lakhs) on May 12, ether has fallen 40 percent.

The outflows in Bitcoin cooled last week to $10 million (roughly Rs. 73 crores), significantly lower than the previous record week of $141 million (roughly Rs. 1,030 crores), CoinShares data showed. Trading activity in Bitcoin products rose 43 percent from the previous week. Bitcoin price in India stood at Rs. 29.5 lakhs as of 12pm IST on June 15.

Bitcoin rose above $40,000 (roughly Rs. 29.2 lakhs) on Monday following tweets from Tesla boss Elon Musk, who said Tesla sold the currency but may resume transactions using it. It was last up 1.8 percent at $39,686 (roughly Rs. 29 lakhs).

While Bitcoin is currently trading 36 percent below its 11-year exponential trend, Dan Morehead, co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, said in his Blockchain Letter on Monday that investors should resist the urge to close positions and instead go the other way if they have the emotional and financial resources to do so.

"Bitcoin generally goes way up...Anyone that has held Bitcoin for 3.25 years has made money," said Morehead.

Grayscale, the largest digital currency manager, raised its AUM to $33.04 billion (roughly Rs. 2,41,960 crores) last week, from $30.3 billion (roughly Rs. 2,21,960 crores) the previous week.

CoinShares, the second biggest digital asset manager, saw AUM slip to $3.8 billion (roughly Rs. 27,840 crores), from nearly $4 billion (roughly Rs. 29,300 crores) the week before.

© Thomson Reuters 2021