Why Big ETF Flows Are Worrisome
Like you, I see the regular posts about the Spot BTC inflow records. Running out of superlatives.
They are correct. We have never seen anything like it.
Why isn't the price going up? (orange)
Since the BTC ATH on March 13 ($74.3k):
* Spot BTC ETFs flows
* The halving (April 19)
* Trump endorsement (July)
* Tech/SPX mania
* Fed Cut (Sept)
The price should have hit $100k months ago.
Instead, it's down 4%.
Furthermore, money has been pouring
And Gold's price is screaming higher, up 25%.
Why is gold soaring when BTC cannot go up despite an almost never-ending stream of bullish news?
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To me, the answer is simple.
Gold flows are $6B of mostly new money.
BTC's $12B flows are mostly on-chain or centralized exchange money. IOW, not new money
Coinbase CFO Haas this week, retail is leaving them. We would argue for the ETFs, hence the big inflows.
Underscoring this is the size of the trades.
The average gold ETF trade
Spot BTC ETF trades are only $16k. This seems to be money shifting from former Coinbase retail accounts to the ETF, so it's not new money.
I've argued this before ... This is a problem for crypto.
The ETFs are not attracting new money. They are not the gateway to get boomers on-chain.
Instead, they are sucking money back into Tradfi accounts. It comes from Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, hot wallets, and cold storage. No one cares about owning their own keys.
And if these ETFs keep sucking money back into Tradfi accounts, they will continue to hurt (maybe damage) on-chain investments as this gives government regulators and Tradi chieftains
So, the more glowing posts I see about massive inflows without new price highs, the more I worry that this is not good for crypto's future.
Where are we now?
Worried boomers are pouring into gold, and it has number go up.
BTC is a zero-sum game of existing money that cannot make number go up.
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4 个月Bitcoin has limited data when compared to Gold. Also, the gold market is still magnitudes larger than bitcoin and ALREADY has the support of nation state central banks (already printing fiat to buy a scarce commodity like gold). Curious to see where this goes. For the time being, the “transmission mechanism” ETF Flows-to-Bitcoin Price eludes me. It is difficult to imagine that most “on-chain” bitcoin ownership is simply transferring to off-chain Trad-Fi ETFs and therefore price is unchanged. Who is to say that OLD on-chain capital has sold, while a similar amount of off-chain capital has bought a similar amount? SO….there is NEW money, albeit coming in at a SIMILAR proportion to OLD on-chain money selling? One thing remains true in all of it: “ranging price action”. That much is, indeed, obvious. For long-term investors, and more so hardcore “bitcoin bugs”, the “recent price action” is not worrysome. For them, the “feature/benefit” of bitcoin is not price. Bitcoin is viewed under exactly the same lense as gold is viewed in investment portfolios: off-chain/on-chain and paper/physical. Enjoy your work/opinions.
CEO at Margin Syndicate | 25+ Years in IT, Crypto & Financial Markets | Expert in HFT, Arbitrage and Trading Systems | Advocate for Privacy, Decentralisation & Monero | Cypherpunk and Crypto Capitalism Proponent
4 个月Always the top.
Founder of Good Steward Wealth Advisors, PLLC | Former Merrill VP & PwC Senior Advisor
4 个月Good observation, Jim! Too many cryptos. What's the size of the crypto market now?
Sic Semper Tyrannis - Miasma Mining Resource Engineer born 313 ppm CO2
4 个月More ominous will be the lack of buyers when the price cracks. It will give new meaning to the old adage 'They slide faster than they Glide.'