Bitcoin is still struggling to reclaim its all-time high even after staging an impressive recovery in the last day. The bounce up from $60,000 to $68,000 has no doubt reignited confidence in the market, but the cryptocurrency continues to face some challenges in its bid for a new all-time high.
Outflows Continue To Rock Bitcoin ETFs
Over the last few months, Spot Bitcoin ETFs have done very well when it comes to inflows, hitting record after record. This saw issues such as BlackRock garner a large number of coins in a short time, which contributed to the Bitcoin run to new all-time highs.
However, as the market gets used to the Spot Bitcoin ETFs being a part of daily investing, outflows have begun to rise. Mainly, these outflows have been from the Grayscale Spot Bitcoin ETF as investors flee from the fund due to their high fees. The same was the case back in January which triggered a crash in the market.
In the last few days, outflows have been dominating the ETF net flows. Data from Coinglass shows that net flows first turned negative at the start of the week on March 18, with $154.3 million flowing out of the funds. The next day, March 19, another $326.2 million left the funds, leading to higher negative flows than the previous day. Then, on March 20, net flows were negative once more, with $261.5 million leaving the funds.
This trend marks the first time since January that Spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen three consecutive days of outflows, which is in stark contrast to the previous week, which saw daily inflows hit a new all-time high of $1.04 billion on March 12.
BTC Price Buckles Under Sell Pressure
The sell pressure Bitcoin is shouldering right now is similar to the one seen in January right after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had given the green light to Spot Bitcoin ETFs for trading. The BTC price also suffered crashes during this time, dropping as low as $38,000.
However, the Bitcoin price had begun to pick up right after the Grayscale outflows slowed down, giving demand enough time to catch up with supply. Just like before, the outflows are being led by Grayscale and until the outflows slow down, BTC could continue to decline.
A turn in the tide from here, nevertheless, would give Bitcoin a lot of runway. A similar surge, as recorded after the outflows ended in January, would easily put the price past $75,000, which would be a new all-time high for cryptocurrency.
For now, BTC is trading at a $67,320, with a 5.51% increase in the last 24 hours.
