Crypto Market Shows Fragility as Institutional Capital Flows Out
The crypto market is showing signs of fragility after a two-day outflow of institutional capital. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs lost $1.11 billion in just 48 hours, with spot Bitcoin ETFs shedding $746.3 million and Ethereum ETFs losing $454.2 million. The synchronized shock was triggered by an unexpected Federal Reserve rate hike and the Senate's blocking of the CLARITY Act.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continued to maintain a strict administrative barrier, delaying the launch of Teucrium's leveraged inverse (short) XRP ETF for the 19th consecutive time. The decision was met with sarcasm from former Ripple CTO David Schwartz, who joked about looking forward to shorting the short fund.
Despite the market downturn, some crypto assets demonstrated resilience. Solana (+$116.9 million) and XRP (+$3.5 million) recorded opposing institutional inflows, while capital rotated into specialized AI protocols and privacy-sector assets. The AI crypto sector gained 4.6% in 24 hours on a global trading volume of more than $2 billion.
Zcash surged past $1,350, lifting its market capitalization to $23 billion and squeezing a $51.5 million short position. The asset's move was driven by three hard factors: successful hard fork, tokenomics protection, and venture capital investment from Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang.