Crypto Boom: Altcoins Surge, Institutions Bet Big on Bitcoin ETFs

Authors

André Dragosch, PhD Director, Head of Research — Europe

Ayush Tripathi Research Analyst

Overview

Chart of the Week
Performance
Sentiment
Fund Flows
On-Chain
Futures, Options & Perpetuals
Bottom Line
Appendix

Last week, overall cryptoassets continued to perform well, although with large performance dispersion. While Bitcoin’s performance was mostly unchanged during the week, Ethereum and most other major altcoins managed to outperform strongly.
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” has recently recovered and currently signals a slightly bearish sentiment.
The latest 13F-filings in the US have revealed that institutional adoption has continued to rise significantly. The latest filings show that probably more than 3000 institutional holders worldwide could have exposure to at least one of the available US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Crypto Boom: Altcoins Surge, Institutions Bet Big on Bitcoin ETFs | Bitwise Weekly Crypto Market Compass | Bitwise

Chart of the Week

Performance

Last week, overall cryptoassets continued to perform well, although with large performance dispersion. While Bitcoin's performance was mostly unchanged during the week, Ethereum and most other major altcoins managed to outperform strongly.

One of the key reasons for bitcoin's underperformance appears to be related to the weak ETP flows last week. This should be rather seen as a rotation into other cryptoassets rather than an overall weakness of the market since our Cryptoasset Sentiment Index

Although weekly flows have been negative, the latest 13F-filings in the US have revealed that institutional adoption has continued to rise significantly. The latest filings show that probably more than 3000 institutional holders worldwide could have exposure to at least one of the available US spot Bitcoin ETFs (Note that there might be some overlap across identical holders though) – Chart of the Week.

Major financial institutions like Jane Street, Millenium, Brevan Howards, Goldman Sachs have disclosed very significant holdings that already exceed 1 billion USD. It should be noted that some of these major holdings are related to market making activities in the underlying ETFs such as in the case of Jane Street or Susquehanna who are dedicated Authorized Participants (APs) in US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

That being said, a major disclosure was made by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubdala Investment Company which disclosed 436 mn USD in the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) per the end of Q4 2024.

Given the small size of the position relative to its overall holdings - total AuM amount to around 330 bn USD - it is quite likely that this rather represents an initial pilot investment with more investments likely to come over the next 12 months.

As far as the US sovereign adoption of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset is concerned, that probability for 2025 has recently decreased to only 42% implied by the latest data provided by Polymarket.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin Strategic Reserve legislation continues to be pushed through different US states. According to the latest data provided by bicoinlaws.io, 32 US states are currently looking into enacting digital asset related legislations of which 24 states are looking into the establishment of a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve.

It is worth highlighting that the potential amount of buying on a state level in the US could already exceed the planned purchases outlined in the federal Bitcoin Bill (around 200k BTC per year).

In general, among the top 10 crypto assets, XRP, Cardano, and BNB were the relative outperformers.

Overall altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin picked up significantly last week, with 90% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum has also outperformed Bitcoin last week.

Sentiment

Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” has recently recovered and currently signals a slightly bearish sentiment.

At the moment, 6 out of 15 indicators are above their short-term trend.

We have recently observed significant reversals in the altseason index well as the BTC 1-month 25-delta option skew.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently signals a “Neutral” level of sentiment as of this morning.

Performance dispersion among cryptoassets has recently increased again albeit from very low levels, signalling that altcoins have continued to be highly correlated with the performance of Bitcoin lately.

Altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has reversed sharply higher last week, with around 90% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum has also outperformed Bitcoin last week.

In general, increasing (decreasing) altcoin outperformance tends to be a sign of increasing (decreasing) risk appetite within cryptoasset markets and the latest altcoin outperformance signals a bullish risk appetite at the moment.

Sentiment in traditional financial markets as measured by our in-house measure of Cross Asset Risk Appetite (CARA) has also increased last week. The index currently signals a slightly bullish cross asset risk appetite.

Fund Flows

Weekly fund flows into global crypto ETPs have decelerated significantly last week, mainly due to higher outflows from Bitcoin ETPs.

Global crypto ETPs saw around -464.1 mn USD in weekly net outflows across all types of cryptoassets, after +1,359.0 mn USD in net inflows the previous week.

Global Bitcoin ETPs flows have decelerated sharply with net outflows totalling -468.8 mn USD last week, of which -596.5 mn USD in net outflows were related to US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) in the US experienced net outflows, totalling -43.0 mn USD last week.

In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) also experienced minor net outflows equivalent to -1.0 mn USD, while the Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1) managed to attract capital of around +0.7 mn USD.

Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) accelerated again with around -107.0 mn USD in net outflows last week. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) defied negative market trends with around +105.5 mn USD in net inflows last week.

Meanwhile, flows into global Ethereum ETPs also decelerated significantly, with around -21.0 mn USD in net outflows after +862.6 mn USD in net inflows the week before which was the highest weekly level of inflows since December 2024.

US Ethereum spot ETFs also recorded net outflows with around -26.3 mn USD on aggregate. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) experienced net outflows with around -56.5 mn USD last week.

The Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) in the US saw sticky AuM (+/- 0 mn USD) last week.

In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH) experienced an acceleration in net inflows of +2.5 mn USD while the Bitwise Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32) saw neither in- nor outflows last week (+/- 0 mn USD).

Altcoin ETPs ex Ethereum continued to attract capital last week, with around +30.5 mn USD in global net inflows on aggregate. The Bitwise Physical Solana ETP (ESOL) had minor net inflows of around +0.1 mn USD while the Bitwise Solana Staking ETP (BSOL) both did not experience any creations or redemptions last week (+/- 0 mn USD).

Furthermore, thematic & basket crypto ETPs experienced some net outflows of around -4.9 mn USD on aggregate last week. The Bitwise MSCI Digital Assets Select 20 ETP (DA20) did see +0.8 mn USD in net inflows last week.

Global crypto hedge funds have continued to exhibit a very low market exposure to Bitcoin last week. The 20-days rolling beta of global crypto hedge funds' performance to Bitcoin has continued to be around 0.45 per yesterday's close, unchanged from 0.45 the week before.

On-Chain Data

In general, Bitcoin's on-chain developments have slightly improved at the margin.

Selling pressure has declined somewhat compared to last week, with around -1.1 bn USD in net selling volumes on BTC spot exchanges. It had reached the highest amount of selling pressure since June 2022 the week before.

From our point-of-view, this implies that sellers have already become exhausted and that selling volumes are gradually retreating again.

That being said, BTC exchange balances have not decreased significantly which is mainly due to a temporary increase in net transfers to exchanges (by whales). As a result, exchange balances have mostly moved sideways last week.

Whales continued to take bitcoins off exchanges on a net basis, albeit at a much slower pace than the week before. More specifically, BTC whales removed -2837 BTC from exchanges, indicating an increase in whale buying pressure.

Network entities that possess at least 1,000 Bitcoin are referred to as whales.

At the time of writing, only 2.726 million BTC remain on exchanges, according to data provided by Glassnode.

Futures, Options & Perpetuals

Last week, BTC futures open interest increased somewhat. More specifically, BTC futures open interest increased by around +12k BTC while perpetual open interest increased by around +5k BTC.

Both short and long futures liquidations remained relatively stable last week.

BTC perpetual funding rates remained positive throughout the week signalling a slightly bullish sentiment among perpetual futures traders.

In general, when the funding rate is positive (negative), long (short) positions periodically pay short (long) positions, which is indicative of bullish (bearish) sentiment.

The BTC 3-months annualised basis continued to decline to around 8.3% p.a. averaged across various futures exchanges as futures traders paired back their bullish price expectations.

Meanwhile, BTC option open interest saw only a slight increase by around +1k BTC last week. The put-call open interest ratio also declined somewhat, signalling increased relative put call buying last week.

This was also very much reflected in the 1-month 25-delta skew for BTC which decreased significantly and which an increase in bullish sentiment. 1-month BTC options' volatility premia are now significantly skewed towards delta-equivalent calls again.

BTC option implied volatilities have declined significantly as the market has moved sideways.

At the time of writing, implied volatilities of 1-month ATM Bitcoin options are currently at around 48.6% p.a.

Bottom Line

Last week, overall cryptoassets continued to perform well although with large performance dispersion. While Bitcoin’s performance was mostly unchanged during the week, Ethereum and most other major altcoins managed to outperform strongly.
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” has recently recovered and currently signals a slightly bearish sentiment.
The latest 13F-filings in the US have revealed that institutional adoption has continued to rise significantly. The latest filings show that probably more than 3000 institutional holders worldwide could have exposure to at least one of the available US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Appendix

Important information:

This article does not constitute investment advice, nor does it constitute an offer or solicitation to buy financial products. This article is for general informational purposes only, and there is no explicit or implicit assurance or guarantee regarding the fairness, accuracy, completeness, or correctness of this article or the opinions contained therein. It is advised not to rely on the fairness, accuracy, completeness, or correctness of this article or the opinions contained therein. Please note that this article is neither investment advice nor an offer or solicitation to acquire financial products or cryptocurrencies.

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Potential investors should seek independent advice and consider relevant information contained in the base prospectus and the final terms for the ETPs, especially the risk factors mentioned therein. The invested capital is at risk, and losses up to the amount invested are possible. The product is subject to inherent counterparty risk with respect to the issuer of the ETPs and may incur losses up to a total loss if the issuer fails to fulfill its contractual obligations. The legal structure of ETPs is equivalent to that of a debt security. ETPs are treated like other securities.

About Bitwise

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