Spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds generated $125 million in inflows on Tuesday
Spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds generated $125 million in inflows on Tuesday, representing their best daily performance since early February, CoinGlass data showed.
BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) led the eight funds with $80 million in net inflows.
The surge coincides with Ethereum’s rise above $2,800 for the first time in nearly four months.
The last time overall inflows eclipsed that mark was on Feb. 2, when investors stuffed $276 million into BlackRock’s ETHA and Ethereum’s price stood at $2,900.
Ethereum was recently changing hands around $2,853, a 4.8% increase over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. That represented the asset’s highest price since U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war began rattling markets globally. Although Bitcoin has set new all-time highs since then, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has remained far below its 2021 peak of nearly $4,900.
Analysts say that Ethereum’s recent strength stems from comments made by SEC Chair Paul Atkins on Monday. During a roundtable discussion focused on decentralized finance, or DeFi, Atkins said that the agency was looking into “innovation relief” for entities engaged in the emergent subsector. Atkins detailed other steps that the agency is also taking to become more accommodating of the emergent crypto subsector that features autonomous protocols built around smart contracts.
Spot Ethereum ETFs have now generated $745 million over the course of an 11-day hot streak. Since they debuted last July, they have generated around $3.5 billion in net inflows.
The uptick in inflows on Tuesday was “notable due to Ethereum’s smaller institutional base,” Valentin Fournier, lead research analyst at BRN, wrote in a note. “This signals renewed confidence in the crypto rally, especially among large players,” he added.
Last week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin predicted that Ethereum’s ability to process transactions will improve tenfold over the next year. Instead of focusing solely on layer-2 networks, he advocated for solutions that would help scale Ethereum’s main network, avoiding congestion issues that were especially notable during the pandemic-era crypto boom.
Edited by James Rubin