$7.5B Floods Crypto ETFs as Bitcoin Stalls and Ethereum Goes Turbo

Wall Street’s crypto cash machine keeps printing—ETF inflows just smashed $7.5 billion despite Bitcoin’s sluggish performance. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s upgrade momentum is pulling institutional money like a gravity well.

Here’s the kicker: Traders are rotating out of ’digital gold’ into smart contract platforms, betting the house on DeFi’s infrastructure play. Classic hedge fund behavior—chasing yesterday’s winner until the wheels fall off.

The real story? ETH’s accelerating adoption curve while BTC struggles with post-halving blues. Watch the flippening chatter return when suits realize yield beats ’store of value’ narratives every time.

Bitcoin inflow slows

According to CoinShares, Bitcoin-related investment products continued to attract the lion’s share of capital, pulling in $557 million in weekly inflows.

While this figure remains substantial, it marks a decline from the $867 million it drew the previous week.

Butterfill attributed the dip to renewed caution from investors following more aggressive policy signals from the US Federal Reserve.

However, short-Bitcoin products logged their fourth straight week of inflows, totaling $5.8 million.

This trend implies that some investors are hedging their positions or speculating on a potential short-term pullback.

Over the past month, Bitcoin’s price surged more than 20% to as high as $106,000 this weekend before easing to $102,000 at press time.

Ethereum leads altcoin surge

Ethereum emerged as the top-performing altcoin with $205 million in new inflows last week. Its year-to-date total now stands at $575 million.

CoinShares linked the momentum to Ethereum’s recent Pectra upgrade and internal leadership shifts within the ethereum Foundation.

The changes include the appointment of Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as co-executive directors, with Vitalik Buterin transitioning to a research-oriented role.

Following the moves, Stańczak emphasized that the network is focusing on LAYER 1 scaling, Layer 2 support, and improved user experience. These efforts would be central to Ethereum’s upcoming upgrades, including Fusaka and Glamsterdam, to enhance interoperability and accessibility.

Among other altcoins, sui attracted $9.3 million in inflows, pushing its year-to-date flows to $91 million. XRP followed with $4.9 million, lifting its total to $263 million.

In contrast, solana was the only major altcoin to post outflows last week, losing $890,000 and trimming its yearly total to $75 million.