Almost $100M exits US crypto funds in anticipation of hawkish monetary policy

Published at: June 14, 2022

Institutional investors offloaded $101.5 million worth of digital asset products last week in “anticipation of hawkish monetary policy” from the United States Federal Reserve, according to CoinShares.

U.S. inflation rates hit 8.6% year-on-year at the end of May, marking a return to levels not seen since 1981. As a result, the market is expecting the Fed to take considerable action to reel in inflation, with some traders pricing in three more 0.5% rate hikes by October.

According to the latest edition of CoinShares’ weekly “Digital Asset Fund Flows” report, the outflows between June 6 and June 10 were primarily led by investors from the Americas at $98 million, while Europe accounted for just $2 million.

Products offering exposure to crypto’s top two assets, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), accounted for nearly all outflows at $56.8 million and $40.7 million a piece. The month-to-date figures also paint a grim figure at $91.1 million worth of outflows for BTC products and $72.3 million in total outflows for ETH products:

“What has pushed Bitcoin into a ‘crypto winter’ over the last six months can by and large be explained as a direct result of an increasingly hawkish rhetoric from the US Federal Reserve.”

While CoinShares suggested that Bitcoin has been pushed into a crypto winter, the year-to-date (YTD) inflows for BTC investment products still stand at $450.8 million. In comparison, funds offering exposure to ETH have seen hefty year-to-date outflows of $386.5 million, suggesting the sentiment amongst institutional investors still heavily favors digital gold.

The report also highlighted that the total assets under management (AUM) for Ether funds have “fallen from its peak of US$23bn in November 2021 to US$8.7bn” as of last week.

Notably, it appears that the institutional investors offloaded their BTC and ETH products before most of the latest price carnage happened to both assets.

According to data from CoinGecko, between June 6 and June 10, the price of BTC and ETH dropped 4.7% and 5.9% each. However, since June 11, BTC and ETH have plunged around 25.7% and 33.2%, respectively.

Apart from BTC and ETH outflows, multi-asset funds saw outflows of $4.7 million, and short Bitcoin products posted minimal outflows of $200,000. At the same time, investors also “steered clear of adding to altcoin positions.”