Short bitcoin has been at the forefront of investors’ attention over the last few months. Since it launched, it has garnered an impressive asset allocation and has not eased up. This is not surprising as the market had begun another bear run. However, last week, investors began to move the other way when it comes to short bitcoin. Inflows have now turned to outflows.
Bitcoin Investors Begin Profit-Taking
The CoinShares Digital Asset Fund Flows weekly report shows that investors have turned towards outflows for short bitcoin. For the past 7 weeks, short bitcoin had been enjoying consecutive inflows as the price of the digital asset had nosedived. Now, it seems that these investors have begun to enjoy the spoils as they begin taking money out.
For the first time in more than two months, short bitcoin outflows came out to a total of $5.1 million. Interestingly, the total asset under management (AuM) for the short BTC remains high at $172 million, a new record high for the digital asset. So even though investors have been pulling out money, it only shows that there is profit-taking going on and not necessarily a shift in sentiment toward the investment vehicle.
BTC recovers above $20,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
On the flip side, long bitcoin only saw minor inflows. This is also in line with the increased interest in short BTC. With inflows totaling $0.1 million for the 7-day period, it goes to show that institutional investors are still very bearish when it comes to the digital assets. Bitcoin’s total AuM has now dropped to a new 3-month low of $15.9 billion.
Inflows In Other Areas
When it comes to outflows, most of it seemed to be localized to the short bitcoin alone. Other digital assets, such as Ethereum, saw inflows for the week. The digital asset, which is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, had been seeing a lot of interest due to the completed Merge, which brought in inflows of $7.7 million for the week. However, all sentiment was not bullish, given that the recently launched Short Ethereum investment product had recorded $1.1 million in inflows.
Some altcoins also saw minor inflows during this period. Assets such as Cosmos and XRP got some attention from institutional investors, with inflows reaching $0.4 million and $0.5 million, respectively, during the one-week period. Additionally, multi-asset investment products saw inflows reaching $1.8 million for the same time period.
The majority of the inflows had come from Europe, totaling $15 million for this time period. While across the pond, North America showed more bearish sentiment. The outflows were localized to this region, reaching $9.4 million.
Featured image from ZenLedger, charts from TradingView.com
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