The outflows from the Grayscale Ethereum ETF have decreased, falling below $100 million for the first time since its introduction. Whale activity on Ethereum increases.
This week has seen continued volatility in the spot Ether ETF flows, with BlackRock and Grayscale controlling the majority of the flow activity. After just eight trading days since its launch last week, the Grayscale Ethereum ETF (ETHE) has seen cumulative outflows of nearly $2 billion as of Thursday, August 1. Consequently, the ETHE assets under management decreased by 22% and currently total little over $7 billion.
Grayscale Ethereum ETF outflows subside
The Grayscale Ether ETF (ETHE) has seen a decrease in withdrawals, which is a positive development. ETHE’s net outflow on Thursday, August 1, was $78 million, below $100 million for the first time since the program’s founding. With inflows of almost $200 million so far, the Grayscale Ethereum mini-ETF (ETH) is making up for some of the withdrawals.
The Federal Reserve maintained interest rates constant on Wednesday, citing the likelihood of a September rate drop, which caused the spot Ether ETF flows to turn negative. But on Thursday, August 1, it moved into positive territory.
Yesterday, the spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs had net inflows of $26 million. Inflows into the BlackRock Ether ETF (ETHA) were $89.6471 million. Thus, since its inception, BlackRock ETHA has received net inflows totaling more than $710 million. There were slight inflows of about $11.4 million into Fidelity’s FETH.
Ethereum whale activity spikes with ETH volatility
Recently, there has been a lot of whale activity on the Ethereum blockchain as the price of ETH hovers around $3,165.
Lookonchain provided an explanation for the current decline in ETH pricing by pointing out that over the course of the previous two days, three wallets connected to Elwood had deposited 19,500 ETH—or about $64 million—on the cryptocurrency market Binance. These wallets had a history of sending Ethereum to Binance prior to the meltdown, according to Lookonchain.
Who dumped $ETH causing the price to drop?
We noticed 3 wallets related to #Elwood deposited 19,500 $ETH($63.66M) to #Binance in the past 2 days!
Coincidentally, these wallets deposited $ETH to #Binance every time before the price crashed!https://t.co/ME12Up3BIL pic.twitter.com/9dEbivNWrZ
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 1, 2024
In addition, 180,000 Ethereum options with a put-call ratio of 0.55, a notional value of $600 million, and a maximum pain point of $3,300 are scheduled to expire today, according to data from Greeks.Live.
Crypto whales and MicroStrategy buy over $302M in Bitcoin amidst price dip
Crypto whales and the massive business intelligence company MicroStrategy have made significant investments in Bitcoin, taking advantage of the recent decline in its value.
Their total investments surpass $302 million, suggesting that despite market volatility, they have a strong positive perspective.
Crypto whales buy the Bitcoin dip
In July, MicroStrategy added 169 Bitcoin worth $11.4 million to their portfolio. With this latest purchase, the company’s total Bitcoin holdings, valued at around $14.6 billion, now stand at 226,500. These Bitcoins were purchased by MicroStrategy for $8.3 billion, averaging $36,821.
The CEO of MicroStrategy, Phong Le, stated his unwavering confidence regarding the potential of Bitcoin (BTC).
“On the adoption front, we are extremely optimistic with the improved understanding of Bitcoin and the increasing support for the ecosystem from bipartisan politicians and institutions on display at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville,” Le said.
The Bitcoin community is still praising Michale Saylor, co-founder of MicroStrategy, and the company for their audacious approach. Nonetheless, the company revealed significant financial losses for the second quarter of 2024, with a net loss of $102.6 million.
Not just MicroStrategy is placing significant bets on Bitcoin. A cryptocurrency whale profited from the market slump, according to Spot On Chain, by moving 4,600 BTC, or $291 million, from the Bitfinex exchange to a new wallet.
This action was taken after Bitcoin quickly recovered on Thursday after briefly falling to $62,300. The price recovery demonstrates the high volatility of the cryptocurrency market, which offers advantages as well as disadvantages.
Over the last day, there has been significant fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin. It started off at $62,300, then surged to $65,600, and then leveled off around $64,500. As a result, there were large liquidations on the market that affected a lot of trading positions. Nearly 100,870 traders were impacted by the $284.63 million liquidation of cryptocurrency traders’ holdings during this time.
Industry experts continue to have a positive long-term outlook on Bitcoin despite these short-term swings. According to Jan Van Eck, CEO of asset management company VanEck, Bitcoin may someday have a market valuation equal to half that of gold. According to this estimate, Bitcoin is worth around $350,000.
JUST IN: VanEck CEO says #Bitcoin will be half the total market cap of gold, hitting $350,000 🚀 pic.twitter.com/KGRi0DGvfJ
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 1, 2024
XRP Ledger hosts OpenEden’s tokenized treasury bills with Ripple’s $10M investment
Recently, OpenEden and Ripple announced their collaboration to add tokenized US Treasury notes, or T-bills, to the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
Ripple will provide a sizeable $10 million to OpenEden’s main tokenized product, TBILL, as part of this agreement.
DeFi meets TradFi: Transforming T-Bills into digital assets
Senior Vice President of RippleX Markus Infanger emphasized the noteworthy impacts of tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs) in an official statement. He pointed out that organizations are looking more carefully at the process of tokenizing their RWAs.
OpenEden co-founder Jeremy Ng also voiced his enthusiasm for this project. He clarified that the addition of tokenized treasury to the XRP Ledger is a significant turning point in the histories of both businesses.
“Purchasers will be able to mint our TBILL tokens via stablecoins, including Ripple USD, when it launches later this year,” Ng added.
Apart from OpenEden, Ripple has collaborated with Archax, the initial digital asset exchange in the UK that is governed by the Financial Conduct Authority. Over the next year, Archax intends to tokenize RWAs valued at hundreds of millions of dollars on the XRPL.
In June, it was announced that Moody’s rating agency has given OpenEden’s TBILL tokens an investment-grade “A” rating. With a market value of $90.64 million as of August 1, TBILL is ranked sixth among other tokenized US Treasury instruments, according to data from RWA.xyz.
T-bills are short-term debt obligations of the United States government, guaranteed by the Treasury Department. They stand for a safe and very liquid class of assets. Investors may easily access standard RWAs through tokenization on a decentralized platform.
In 2024, the market for tokenized US Treasury securities has grown significantly. According to RWA.xyz statistics, this segment’s overall value has increased from $726.23 million to $1.88 billion so far this year. Significant contributions come from Franklin Templeton’s FOBXX and BlackRock’s BUIDL, with respective market capitalizations of $414.300 million and $522.81 million.
Analysts also forecast that the market would keep expanding, possibly reaching $3 billion by the end of 2024. This growth will be driven by demand from decentralized finance (DeFi) initiatives and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) looking for steady, risk-free payouts inside the blockchain ecosystem. McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm, has projected that the market for tokenized financial assets might grow to $2 trillion by 2030.
