Wall Street’s Bitcoin Grab: Institutions Pile In as Retail Traders Flee
Bitcoin’s latest rally isn’t fueled by mom-and-pop investors—it’s a Wall Street takeover. ETF inflows smash records while retail wallets gather dust. Who needs diamond hands when you’ve got an army of asset managers?
The big money moves: BlackRock, Fidelity, and friends now drive price action, turning BTC into just another spreadsheet cell for their quarterly reports. Retail traders? Mostly sidelined or selling into strength—classic ‘buy high, panic low’ behavior.
Here’s the kicker: institutions love volatility (when they can trade around it), but they’ll cry for regulation the second it bites them. Bonus cynicism: nothing unites bankers and crypto like finding new ways to charge fees for the same old speculative asset.
Bitcoin ETFs Stay Hot
BTC spot ETFs continued to draw investor interest on Wednesday, extending their inflow streak with another $916.91 million in net inflows.
This marked the fourth consecutive day of inflows, highlighting the growing institutional appetite for BTC exposure, especially as the coin’s price attempts to stabilize above the $90,000 level.
On Wednesday, BlackRock’s ETF IBIT recorded the largest daily net inflow, totaling $643.16 million, bringing its total cumulative net inflows to $40.63 billion.
Ark Invest and 21Shares’ ETF ARKB followed in second place with a net inflow of $129.50 million. The ETF’s total historical net inflows now stand at $3 billion.
Traders Exit Bitcoin Positions as Market Sentiment Turns Cautious
Trading activity across the crypto market has dipped over the past 24 hours, with the total market capitalization shedding $18 billion during the period.
This pullback has contributed to a modest 1% decline in BTC’s price. The drop in momentum is evident in the coin’s falling futures open interest, which signals reduced trading participation. At press time, BTC’s futures open interest is at $64.54 billion, plunging by 5% in the past day.
When an asset’s price and open interest plummet like this, it signals that traders are closing out positions rather than opening new ones. This combination reflects weak conviction and a potential trend reversal or deeper correction in the BTC market.
Further, BTC’s funding rate has flipped negative once again, indicating that short traders have regained dominance and are now paying to maintain their positions. At press time, this is at -0.0053%.
When BTC’s funding rate is negative, short sellers are paying long holders to keep their positions open. This indicates that bearish sentiment dominates the market and suggests that traders expect the coin’s price to decline soon.
Moreover, today’s high demand for puts in the BTC options market supports this bearish outlook. According to Deribit, BTC’s put-to-call ratio is currently at 1.36.
This indicates that more put options are traded than calls, suggesting a bearish bias among options traders. The ratio reflects growing expectations of downward price movement.
