The ETF size numbers have been going up shockingly fast these days, but the actual new money coming in accounts for only a little over one-tenth; the rest is the coin price rising on its own.
On August 20, the BTC spot ETF saw a daily net inflow of $606 million, the largest day in this round. Going back, August 17: $298 million; August 18: $189 million; August 19: $517 million. Over four trading days in total, that adds up to $1.610 billion. Before that, there were five consecutive trading days of net outflows.
Putting the asset sizes side by side is quite interesting. The total size of the BTC ETF rose from 76.606 billion yuan on August 14 to 90.164 billion yuan, an increase of 13.557 billion yuan in just over a week. The new money that came in is only 1.610 billion yuan, or 11.9%. The remaining 88% is from those coins in hand simply rising in price. In the same period, BTC surged from a low of 62,859.8 to 79,923.7; it is now 76,855.5, up 6.45% over the past 24 hours.
The proportions there for ETH are different. ETH ETF saw an inflow of 221 million on August 20. Over four days, the cumulative inflow reached 512 million, setting a new all-time high for historical cumulative net inflows at 11.993 billion. The size grew from 10.520 billion to 13.585 billion, an increase of 3.064 billion. New money accounts for 16.7%, which is nearly 5 percentage points higher than BTC. In the last 24 hours, Ethereum is up only 2.67% to 2371.17, and within this expansion of market size, a larger share is real buyers paying in cash.
SOL is awake too. On August 20, inflows were 14.58 million, its biggest single day since August, and the size surpassed 1.061 billion. Before that, from August 12 to August 17, there were four straight trading days with not a single dollar coming in.
OTC is buying, while on-exchange leverage has just been swept through. In the past hour across the whole network, 61.56 million USD was liquidated. Longs were 55.11 million, accounting for 89.5%. Of BTC’s 35.55 million liquidations, longs were 34.08 million. Of ETH’s 16.96 million, longs were 16.29 million—both around 96%. But on a 24-hour basis, it’s the opposite: of 1.558 billion liquidations, shorts were 1.244 billion, or 79.9%. After an overnight squeeze ran its course, the final push up to 79923 also harvested the longs that had chased in.
Open interest points to the same thing. ETH futures open interest is 23.360 billion, up 4.53% in 24 hours. BTC futures open interest is 43.410 billion, up only 0.62%. Both the ETF side and the derivatives side show that the additional net flow is more clearly coming from ETH.
The Fear & Greed Index rose from 31 on August 17 to 72 today. In four days, it jumped from the fear zone into the greed zone.
When looking at ETFs, do you care more about the net inflow on a single day, or the change in total size?
Check in real time: https://www.coinboss.com/etf