
Cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) experienced a significant downturn last week amid market instability linked to DeepSeek concerns and Trump-era tariffs, with weekly inflows falling to $527 million. This marks a steep decline of 72% from the previous week’s $1.9 billion inflows, according to CoinShares’ latest report.
The report indicates that investor sentiment soured due to anxiety over China’s AI platform DeepSeek and fears of a global trade conflict sparked by Trump’s push for strict import tariffs. The panic triggered an outflow of $530 million on January 27 alone.
While Bitcoin exchange-traded products reported inflows of $486 million last week, contributing to year-to-date inflows of $4.9 billion, ether-based ETPs saw no inflows, joining Litecoin in this exception. XRP investment products, on the other hand, attracted $14.5 million in inflows, placing XRP as the second-best-performing altcoin ETP with $105 million year-to-date.
Grayscale Investments saw an increase in outflows by 140%, with $298 million withdrawn compared to $124 million the previous week. This brings their total outflows for the year to $690 million. Bitwise also faced heavy losses, with outflows of $126 million, escalating more than 560% from the week before.
Despite the overall market downturn, BlackRock’s crypto ETFs saw reduced buying activity, with inflows decreasing to $918 million from $1.4 billion the previous week, reflecting a 58% slowdown.
Further volatility was introduced by external factors such as market reactions to Jim Cramer’s investment advice against Bitcoin, which some market observers link to a subsequent dip in prices. Additionally, Tether USDT faced delistings from several exchanges in the European Union due to new regulatory requirements, adding further uncertainty to the market.