Institutional investor Bitcoin Sentiment turned pessimistic on Friday as Bitcoin short entries hit an all-time high, according to a new report from CoinShares.
Short Bitcoin The funds give investors exposure to derivatives, like futures and options, that bet against the price of Bitcoin. While investors can enter into these contracts directly, the CoinShares report tracks the flow of funds for exchange-traded products.
At the end of last week, short Bitcoin investment products hit an all-time high of $172 million in assets under management, according to the report. CoinShares has been following Bitcoin short funds since the first one, 21Shares Short Bitcoin was launched on the Six Swiss Exchange, in January 2020.
Bitcoin funds now have $16 billion in assets under management. This is the lowest since late June, wrote James Butterfill, director of research at CoinShares, writing that last week’s trends show a “tepid investor appetite for digital assets.”
However, there has always been bullish Bitcoin behavior among institutions. MicroStrategy bought 301 Bitcoins, worth around $6 million when it announced last week. But MicroStrategy shareholders weren’t as enthusiastic about the news as Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.
MSTR’s stock price fell 6% on the day of the announcement. On Monday, MSTR was trading at $198.98, close to trading over $200 and making up for the ground it lost on last week’s Bitcoin news.
There was a bit of good news for Ethereum-based funds, which saw net inflows totaling $7 million. This is the first positive feeling since the Ethereum merger. In the weeks before and after the merger, which took place on September 15, Ethereum funds saw outflows of $62 million and $15 million, respectively.
Both Ethereum and Bitcoin have struggled over the past week, with Bitcoin still below $20,000 on Monday and trading at $19,082.92, according to CoinGecko. Ethereum was trading at $1,318.57 on Monday afternoon, still well below the $1,600 price it last reached before the merger.
One of the main factors affecting the price of Ethereum has been miners selling their ETH. Data from OKLink, which analyzes data from a dozen mining pools, showed that miners sold $20 million worth of ETH in the week before the merger.
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