By Sidhartha Shukla and María Paula Mijares Torres

Bitcoin is registering its worst month since the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire as the euphoria around US exchange-traded funds for the largest digital asset subsides. 

 

The original cryptocurrency is down 14% in April, the most since it slumped 16% in November 2022. The US-ETF induced mania took Bitcoin to a record high of almost $74,000 in March, but as demand for risky investments takes a knock from fading hopes for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, inflows to the products has come down significantly. 

As of April 29, the month has seen a net outflows of $182 million from the 11 US spot ETFs. The funds saw $4.6 billion in net inflow in March. The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the funds in January.

The much-anticipated Bitcoin halving, a quadrennial event that reduces the supply of new coins in the market and historically acted as a price tailwind, had minimal impact since it happened on April 19. Although the halving didn’t affect the number of transactions that can be processed per block, it did reduce the amount of new Bitcoin that miners are awarded by half.

Stocks of crypto mining companies slumped more than the price of Bitcoin. Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. dropped 7.5%, Riot Platforms Inc. fell 5.6%, Cleanspark Inc. slipped 7.7% and Cipher Mining Inc dipped 6.27%.

Additionally, MicroStrategy Inc. tumbled 15%. On Monday, the software maker that has made buying Bitcoin as part of its corporate strategy, posted a first-quarter loss of $53 million. The firm took an impairment change against the value of its Bitcoin holdings even though the cryptocurrency surged during the period. 

Market watchers were looking at Asia for a fresh tailwind and had all eyes on the Bitcoin and Ether spot ETF listings in Hong Kong, but the Tuesday debut failed to inspire investor confidence. The six new ETFs saw a combined $11 million of trading volume in the first session, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s a far cry from the $4.6 billion in total volume the 10 US spot-Bitcoin products recorded in their debut.

“The market built some irrational expectations ahead of the launch of the Hong Kong ETFs,” said Vetle Lunde, an analyst at K33 Research. 

Reacting to the tepid demand from Hong Kong, Bitcoin and Ether’s price slide picked up pace and the two largest coins fell to as much as 3.8% and 6.6%, respectively on Tuesday. Bitcoin was trading at $60,7220, while Ether was around $2,985 as of 12:10 p.m. New York. 

Ether, the second largest token, is down about 17% in April, seeing its largest monthly decline since June 2022.

The SEC demanded information from various companies in March as part of its review of Ether. Last week, crypto software company Consensys filed a lawsuit to contest the SEC’s power to regulate the Ethereum blockchain and Ether, marking the latest of legal fights between the crypto industry and the agency. 

Lunde added that the drop in demand points toward more volatility ahead. “The Hong Kong ETFs could never suffice to alter this trend, with best case inflow estimates ranging from 15,000-30,000 Bitcoin over the next year, equivalent to two-days inflows to BlackRock’s Bitcoin spot ETF in February,” he said.   

First Published: Apr 30 2024 | 10:10 PM IST