Bitcoin ETF inflows show ‘sensitivity to interest rate expectations’

The fund category saw $252 million of net inflows on Friday alone — the day of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s “dovish” speech in Jackson Hole

by Ben Strack /

August 26, 2024 12:15 pm

dalebor/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

US investors poured half a billion dollars into spot bitcoin ETFs last week, with roughly half of those flows entering the offerings on Friday.

The $506 million moving into the BTC funds marked the highest weekly total since July 22 to July 26, Farside Investors data shows. The segment tallied $535 million of net inflows over that span.

Friday was the day of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium, during which he noted: “The time has come for policy to adjust.”

Read more: Powell confirms September rate cut, stocks and cryptos rally

“Interestingly, the majority of those inflows were on Friday, following the dovish comments from Jerome Powell, indicating bitcoin’s sensitivity to interest rate expectations,” CoinShares research head James Butterfill wrote in a Monday report.

Newsletter

Subscribe to The Breakdown

Indeed, the US-listed BTC funds notched $252 million on the last day of the week — the highest one-day net inflow total since July 22, during which the funds reeled in $486 million.

US spot ether ETFs did not follow suit from a flows perspective, as $45 million trickled out of those funds last week, including nearly $6 million on Friday.

The ETH ETFs have collectively posted negative net flows of $465 million during their first month on the market. They have been dragged down by the higher-priced Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which has so far lost more than $2.5 billion in assets.

The bitcoin funds — after seven and a half months of trading — are closing in on the $18 billion net inflow mark.

Bitcoin’s price was about $63,400 at 11:30 am ET — down 1.3% in the past 24 hours, but up 8.5% from a week ago.

ETH was trading at roughly $2,720 at that time — marking a 1% decline in the last day, but a 4% in the past seven days.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.

Tags

Newsletter

The Breakdown

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Digital Asset Summit 2026

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

buy tickets learn more

recent research

Research

ERC 8004: Introducing Trust for AI Agents

ERC 8004 introduces a new trust layer for AI agents by standardizing onchain identity, reputation, and validation. As agents begin handling capital and coordinating autonomously, trust becomes the key constraint to broader adoption. The rollout mirrors the early x402 narrative, where adoption lagged the initial launch until major integrations and a viral use case pulled attention into the ecosystem. If ERC 8004 follows a similar path, downstream infrastructure tied to the standard could see outsized benefit as the narrative gains traction. The primary beneficiaries are likely to be agent frameworks and launchpads at the distribution layer, agent to agent coordination platforms that enable delegation and payments, and validation providers that offer stronger security and execution guarantees.

by Kunal Doshi