Spot Ether ETFs hosted $147 million worth of inflows in the past two days.
Institutions are buying up shares in spot Ether exchange-traded funds amid the sudden market downturn.
Data from Sosovalue shows $147 million flowing into spot Ether ETFs since the start of the week, including an inflow of $98.3 million on Aug. 6. By comparison, spot Bitcoin ETFs hosted $317 million in outflows since the week began.
The apparent Ether ETF bullishness appears to be the product of both opportunistic dip buying and the outflows from Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust (ETHE) slowing.
ETHE held more than $7 billion in assets when it converted to an ETF on July 23 but has shed more than $2.2 billion since, including $1.5 billion exiting the fund during its first week of operations.
The trust’s recent outflows have been driven in large part by investors who purchased ETHE shares at a discount prior to its ETF conversion — with the fund’s shares trading at 47% below the price of ETH in July 2023. However, the outflows quickly slowed, with ETHE shedding just $46.8 million and $39.7 million over the past two days, respectively.
The price of ETH is up 2.7% in 24 hours but down 23.7% over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko.
BlackRock and Nasdaq apply for Ether ETF options
By contrast, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust, the spot Ether ETF from the world’s largest asset issuer, is the best-performing Ethereum fund with inflows of $869.9 million and no recorded net daily outflows since launching.
BlackRock is doubling down on its commitment to the Ether ETF space, with the firm teaming up with Nasdaq to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch options on the iShares Ethereum Trust on Aug. 6.
Options would offer both an alternative mechanism for investors to gain exposure to ETH, and a tool enabling investors to hedge existing positions.
“The exchange believes that offering options on the Trust will benefit investors by providing them with an additional, relatively lower cost investing tool to gain exposure to spot ether,” the filing said.
However, James Seyffart, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, estimated that the SEC is unlikely to deliver a final verdict on the application until April 9, 2025. Seyffart added that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will also need to greenlight.
Spot Bitcoin ETF issuers similarly applied to list options on their funds in January, but the SEC has consistently delayed its deadline for delivering a verdict since.
“If investing in options for shares of products holding derivatives of an asset is acceptable for investors, investing in options for shares of products holding the asset itself should be as well,” Grayscale said in a blog post.
