Bitcoin price increased promisingly yesterday, surpassing $68,000, but this trend did not persist in the following hours. The rise that lasted until a few hours after the daily close gradually gave way to a decline. There is a reason for this, and it could be the trigger for the expected weekend volatility.
Why Isn’t Bitcoin Rising?
Yesterday, with the easing of Fed pressure, an increase in risk appetite in the cryptocurrency markets was expected. This happened in the early hours, but the optimism, not supported by ETF inflows, weakened afterwards. We had mentioned earlier in the day that the March 20 inflows and March 21 volumes could be decisive for the price.
According to Bloomberg data, spot Bitcoin ETFs have been experiencing the largest series of outflows for three days since their launch. This week alone, there was a net outflow of $1.4 billion from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
BlackRock and Fidelity ETFs are seeing a slowdown in inflows. This indicates that they are starting to fail in mitigating the impact of accelerated GBTC sales. The net outflow from all ETFs reached $742 million weekly. ETF expert Nate Geraci wrote;
“It’s not unusual to see ETF flows change depending on price movements in the underlying asset classes, and Bitcoin has been pulling back recently. No matter how successful spot Bitcoin ETFs are, they won’t attract new money every day.”
This suggests that the “demand mountain” climbed during the rise is now on its way back down. At least this excitement should wane a bit and wait for its day to shine again.
Cryptocurrency Predictions
According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, the IBIT (BlackRock ETF) hosts 250,000 transactions a day with an average transaction size of around $13,000. This indicates that predominantly individual investors are playing an active role in this process. This group of investors is much more affected by fluctuations in BTC prices.
On the other hand, Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart emphasizes that institutions, asset managers, and wealth management professionals have not yet shown the desired level of interest in spot Bitcoin ETFs. In other words, the demand through the ETF channel will fluctuate similarly to the psychology in cryptocurrency exchanges for a long time.
This also indicates that if there is not a massive demand tomorrow, investor sentiment could remain negative until the weekend of March 24, and we might see price corrections. Lastly, to date, there has been a net inflow of $11.4 billion into spot Bitcoin ETFs, so there’s no need to be immediately pessimistic.
