While Congress has gone quiet due to a partial government shutdown, the crypto market is feeling the impact.
The funding lapse over the weekend hasn’t just pushed investors into a more cautious, risk-off mood across spot markets; it has also effectively frozen activity in the crypto ETF space.
As a result, money rushed out of crypto investment products on the last trading day before the weekend.
Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF sees outflows
Spot Bitcoin [BTC] ETFs alone saw $509.7 million leave in a single day.
This added to an ongoing trend of steady outflows that has been in place since 16th January, with just one day of inflows.
BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, which usually attracts strong institutional demand, saw the largest outflow by far.
It recorded $528.3 million in net withdrawals, while most other Bitcoin [BTC] ETF issuers saw little to no activity.
This pullback from institutions occurred as Bitcoin’s price fell 5.1%, dropping to about $78,734 in the past 24 hours as per CoinMarketCap.
The situation was even worse for Ethereum.
ETH ETFs saw a combined $252.9 million in outflows as per data from Farside Investors.
Herein, BlackRock’s ETHA lost $157.2 million, while Fidelity’s FETH saw $95.7 million leave.
Meanwhile, Ethereum’s [ETH] price dropped by more than 8%, falling to around $2,421 in the past 24 hours.
What about Solana and XRP ETF?
Solana [SOL] was also hit hard as its price fell nearly 10% to $105.36, alongside $11.3 million in ETF outflows.
Most of this selling came from funds run by Bitwise and Grayscale.
Ripple [XRP], however, moved against the trend.
Even though its price slipped 2.21% to $1.66, it was the only major crypto asset to see net inflows, attracting $16.79 million, according to SoSo value data.
This suggests some investors are separating XRP’s long-term regulatory outlook from the current political and market uncertainty.
What’s more?
While markets focused on falling prices and the government shutdown, Bitwise quietly took a key step toward launching a new product.
The firm recently registered a Uniswap [UNI] ETF trust in Delaware, which is usually the first legal step before filing formally with the SEC.
In short, even as short-term market pressure and political uncertainty weigh on prices, the race for an altcoin ETF application is not fading.
Final Thoughts
- Institutional investors reacted quickly, pulling large amounts of capital from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana ETFs.
- While prices fell loudly, the quiet moves by firms like Bitwise show institutions are thinking beyond the current panic.
