Crypto Markets Trade Lower as Institutions Offload Millions in Bitcoin

The cryptocurrency market opened Monday to a small but widespread selloff.

Blue-chip cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are down 2% and 2.6% respectively. XRP is the only top-ten token to register positive price action, jumping 5% on the day.

Most tokens are down less than 10% with notable exceptions, like ZKsync, which is down 20% after airdropping 17.5% of its token supply and debuting to a $900 million market capitalization.

According to CoinShares' latest Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, last week was the second worst for institutions in 2024. Large entities offloaded $600 million in digital assets, “likely due to a more hawkish-than-expected FOMC meeting, prompting investors to scale back their exposure to fixed-supply assets.”

Last week’s bearishness by institutional investors was nearly entirely focused on Bitcoin, wrote James Butterfill, head of research for CoinShares. BTC was the only digital asset that registered outflows, with more than $620 million sold.

Ethereum continues its bullish trajectory with a fourth consecutive week of accumulation. Most likely spurred by the inevitable launch of spot Ethereum ETFs, institutions bought $13 million of ETH in the past seven days, bringing the yearly total to $94 million.

Smaller tokens registered negligible outflows and inflows from large entities, with Solana seeing $200,000 in outflows – the only asset other than Bitcoin to see selling.

Experts Move Forward Launch Date Prediction For ETH ETF

Ethereum continues to make headlines as the market prepares for an imminent spot ETF approval.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on June 14 that his team moved forward the date for Ethereum’s ETF instrument to be available for trading to July 2. Balchunas had previously predicted July 4, despite SEC Chairman Gary Gensler saying on June 13 that the product should be live by the end of summer.

According to Balchunas, the SEC sent potential ETF issuers comments on their S-1 filings at the end of last week. Comments, he wrote, were “pretty light, nothing major” and requested replies in a week.

“Decent chance they work to declare them effective the next week and get it off their plate before holiday weekend,” Balchunas added.