Ethereum’s Paradox: ETF Greenlight Fails to Lift Ether Prices

Despite the recent approval of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by U.S. regulators, Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, has continued its downward trajectory, raising concerns among investors.

CoinMarketCap data showed ETH trading at $3,252 at the time of writing, up 2.3% in the past 24 hours. However, ETH had dropped from the highs of $3,500 to the $3,100 price level in the past few days, leaving market participants anxious on the token’s price trajectory.

Notably, ETH is down almost 5% in the last seven days, 4% in the past month, but remains up 75% since July 2023. On the other hand, Bitcoin (BTC) posted a massive 4.4% gain in the past 24 hours and is currently trading around the $67,000 price region with a 5.63% surge in the trading volume of the digital asset.

A major reason for the decline in Ether’s price is the outflows from the spot Ethereum ETFs, majorly from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). According to the data from SoSoValue, the spot ETH ETFs witnessed new outflows worth $152 million while $346 million left ETHE alone. Since July 23, a whopping $1.16 billion has flowed out of ETHE.

On the other hand, BlackRock’s ETHA saw inflows worth $70 million and Bitwise’s ETHW recorded $16.34 million in inflows. ETHA’s cumulative net inflow stands at $354 million, which is a fraction of its spot Bitcoin ETF inflows, which stand at $19.7 billion. This disparity highlights a much higher demand for BTC compared to ETH.

As per the chart provided by TradingView, Ether fell almost 5% on July 25 amid a broader lackluster performance in the U.S. stock market on Wednesday while the volumes remained low.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) has a value of 45.33 which confirms that the sellers are currently in control of the ETH price action. However, the gradient of the line suggests a possible sudden spike in the buying pressure as investors take advantage of lower prices.