Ether ETF Inflows Surpass Bitcoin as Macro Turmoil Drives Interest

In a noteworthy shift, spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. have outpaced their Bitcoin counterparts in net inflows over the past week. Amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, primarily due to U.S. President Trump’s tariffs and trade tensions, Ethereum ETFs saw over double the net inflows compared to Bitcoin ETFs.

According to data from SoSoValue, the nine spot Ethereum ETFs recorded a total of $420.06 million in net inflows between Feb. 3–Feb. 7, marking the first time Ethereum has surpassed Bitcoin in this metric over a weekly period. Ethereum began the week with a modest $83.54 million in inflows on Monday but saw a significant surge on Tuesday, which was attributed to a social media post by Eric Trump. His comment, “It’s a great time to add ETH,” catalyzed a 35% increase in Ethereum’s price, with ETH climbing from $2,300 to over $2,900 in under 24 hours. This price spike contributed to the substantial inflows recorded on that day—$307.77 million.

However, after the Tuesday surge, the following days saw less activity, with inflows dropping to $18.1 million on Wednesday, $10.7 million on Thursday, and a zero net inflow on Friday. Despite this, the total net inflows into Ethereum ETFs for the week stood at $420.06 million, an amount that more than doubled the Bitcoin ETFs’ net inflows during the same period.

Coinbase analysts suggest that this surge in Ethereum ETF interest could be attributed to growing institutional interest in CME-basis trading of ETH. This strategy, which involves going long on spot Ethereum while shorting futures to profit from price gaps, has been performing better than Bitcoin’s CME-basis trades. With CME Ethereum trades yielding a 16% return compared to Bitcoin’s 10% last week, institutions seem to be favoring Ethereum for short-term trading opportunities.

As of press time, the total net inflows into these spot Ethereum funds reached $3.18 billion. Ethereum’s price stood at $2,646, down 0.6% over the past 24 hours.

On the other hand, Bitcoin ETFs had a more mixed week, marking their first anniversary with fluctuations in net inflows. After President Trump imposed tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada, Bitcoin ETFs saw withdrawals of $234.54 million on Monday. Additional outflows of $140.3 million occurred on Thursday, but inflows picked up on Tuesday ($340.82 million), Wednesday ($66.38 million), and Friday ($171.19 million), helping to offset the earlier losses. At the close of the week, Bitcoin ETFs recorded $203.54 million in net inflows, which is a sharp 63% drop from the previous week’s $559.84 million.

Despite the volatility in ETF inflows, Bitcoin had a positive performance, rising 4.6% over the past week and trading at $97,150 at the time of writing.