Cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) experienced a significant sell-off last week, marking the first major outflows of 2025.
Crypto ETPs recorded $415 million of outflows in the past trading week, with Bitcoin (BTC) leading the sell-off with $430 million in outflows, according to a Jan. 17 report from CoinShares.
Bitcoin ETP bleeding was softened by inflows in ETPs tracking altcoins, such as Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP) and Sui (SUI).
CoinShares research head James Butterfill attributed the outflows to macroeconomic concerns, specifically US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks urging patience on rate cuts, along with higher-than-expected US inflation data.
Multi-week inflow streak is over
The crypto ETP outflows last week ended a 19-week inflow streak, which began amid optimism surrounding the US presidential election, Butterfill noted.
The multi-week inflow streak resulted in crypto investment products amassing $29.4 billion — “far surpassing the $16 billion recorded in the first 19 weeks of US spot ETF launches that began in January 2024,” he said.
Weekly crypto asset inflows by the number of the week in late 2024 and early 2025 (in millions of US dollars). Source: CoinShares
The analyst said Bitcoin is highly sensitive to interest rate expectations, and thus, it “bore the brunt of investor outflows.”
Related: Bitcoin analyst PlanB transfers Bitcoin to ETFs to avoid ‘hassle with keys’
“Interestingly, there were no corresponding inflows into short-Bitcoin products, which instead saw outflows of $9.6 million,” he observed.
Solana and XRP lead the inflows
While Ether (ETH) ETPs also saw minor outflows at $7.2 billion last week, other altcoins, such as Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) were the biggest winners.
Solana saw the largest inflows of any asset, totaling $8.9 million, closely followed by XRP and Sui, with inflows amounting to $8.5 million and $6 million, respectively.
Flows by assets (in millions of US dollars). Source: CoinShares
A spike in Solana and XRP ETP investments last week came amid growing optimism about highly anticipated approvals of SOL and XRP exchange-traded funds (ETF) by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, a Solana ETF has a 75% chance of approval by the SEC in 2025, while XRP has a 65% chance.
Magazine: Korea to lift corporate crypto ban, beware crypto mining HDs: Asia Express