Investors cash out in the biggest outflows in 12 weeks

Published on

November 29, 2022

Key points:

Investors pulled $23 million last week.
Fund inflows have only come in Bitcoin "short" funds, which bet on a fall in the digital asset's price.
CoinShares said the move by investors to exit was due to “FTX influence.”

A brutal bear market continues, with crypto investment products seeing their biggest outflows in three months last week, according to a new report.

Investors pulled $23 million last week, digital asset investment firm CoinShares said on Monday.

Fund inflows (investors putting money into crypto products) have only come to short Bitcoin funds, which bet on a fall in the digital asset's price. The company said it has committed $9.2 million to such funds.

The negative sentiment has continued since last week when institutional investors bet on cryptocurrencies in record numbers.

CoinShares said the move by investors to exit was due to “FTX influence.” Cryptocurrency markets have been rocked after FTX — once one of the largest digital asset exchanges — lost billions of dollars in investor funds in a quick and violent crash.

FTX collapsed after discovering it was using customer funds to make investment bets through Alameda Research, a trading firm founded by the exchange’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

After a swift bank run, the company said it didn't hold a one-for-one reserve of client assets, leading to a withdrawal freeze and subsequent bankruptcy filing.

Since then, most digital asset prices have fallen and crypto companies have gone bankrupt.

The latest casualty of the fallout is lender BlockFi, which Btcman reported is on the verge of bankruptcy. The company admitted it was going out of business and fired employees hours later.

Blockchain equities have also been affected, with $13 million in outflows over the past week, CoinShares added in its Monday report.