15 March 2024
Bitcoin is closing out the week on a rather bearish note after suffering a massive crash in the early hours of Friday. The crash pushed the price below $66,000, drawing the rest of the crypto market down with it in the process. The reason for this crash could be traced back to what started the bull run in the first place – Spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Spot Bitcoin ETF Net Flows Suffer
After a long strength of what seemed to be only inflows for Spot Bitcoin ETFs across the space, institutions seem to be scaling back on their buying this week. The data aggregation platform Spot On Chain, revealed that net flows into these ETF dropped drastically over the last few days.
The decline was first noted on Wednesday, March 3, when daily net inflows had experienced a 38% crash. Interestingly, Wednesday had seen the second-largest daily inflow for these Spot BTC ETFs. However, with outflows ramping up at the same time, the net inflows have begun to wane.
This trend continued on Thursday, March 14, as net inflows into the Spot ETFs registered another massive crash. This time around, it fell 80.6% compared to the prior day, which had already seen a 38% decline. As a result, the ETFs saw their worst trading day in over a week.
BTC #ETF Net Inflow Mar 13, 2024: +$684M
• The net inflow dropped by 38.3% compared to the previous day but remains the second-largest inflow per day since ETF inception.
• The cumulative total net inflow after 43 trading days is $11.82B.
• BlackRock ($IBIT) now holds… https://t.co/hziFc5Uy4v pic.twitter.com/DGsnfVecZF
— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) March 14, 2024
Nevertheless, the ETFs are still seeing positive inflow which suggests that outflows continue to dim compared to inflows. However, if the outflows continue to rise, then Bitcoin could suffer tremendously from this, with an example of what could happen being the market crash from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust outflows.
BTC Price Struggles To Recover
After falling to $65,600. The Bitcoin price is struggling to recover from the flash crash. There was a quick buy up of the dip, indicating a lot of demand for BTC at low prices. This demand has been able to brush up the price, causing it to rise once more before being rejected at $68,700.
Presently, the BTC price is circling $66,500, with the $68,000 level proving to be the next significant resistance for the price. But even if the crypto was able to beat this level, there is still the matter of the mounting resistance at $68,700, making it an important resistance level to beat.
The crash has seen Bitcoin’s price decline over 8% in the last day, bringing its market cap down to $1.33 billion. This crash has also proven detrimental for altcoins, with the likes of Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Cardano seeing an average decline of 10%.