Institutional Investors Sell Off Crypto Holdings Amid Fears of Coming Interest Rate Hikes: CoinShares

Digital assets manager CoinShares says institutional investors are feeling cautious about the market as crypto suffers major outflows for the second week in a row.

In its latest Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report, CoinShares finds that institutional investors are selling off their crypto holdings amid fears of coming interest rate hikes.

“Digital asset investment products saw outflows for the 2nd consecutive week totaling $72 million in what we believe is a reaction to the likeliness of further interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve this May.”

Source: CoinShares

Bitcoin (BTC) took the brunt of the outflows. But CoinShares also finds that short-BTC investment products also suffered outflows for the first time this year. Ethereum (ETH) products suffered much of the same fate.

“Bitcoin saw the majority of outflows totaling $46 million last week while short-Bitcoin also saw its largest outflows since December 2022 totaling $7.8 million. Short-bitcoin remains the winner in terms of inflows year-to-date with net flows of $119 million.

Ethereum also suffered, seeing outflows totaling $19 million last week, its largest week of outflows since the Merge in September 2022.”

Despite big outflows for the top cryptos by market cap, some altcoins bucked the trend, bringing in minor inflows despite the overall downturn. Solana (SOL), Algorand (ALGO), and Polygon (MATIC) institutional investment products raked in inflows of $0.2 million, $0.17 million, and $0.14 million, respectively.

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