Bitcoin ETFs Lost $174 Million After Confirmation of Mt. Gox Repayments

Institutional investors have been relentlessly selling U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. In the past five trading sessions, Bitcoin ETFs have seen net outflows of $714 million, according to data analytics platform SoSovalue.

Net outflows amounted to $174 million yesterday after it was revealed that Mt. Gox creditors will finally start getting reimbursed beginning next week. Grayscale’s GBTC fund saw the highest outflow of $90 million, while Fidelity’s FBTC fund witnessed an outflow of $35 million.

BTC briefly breached the $60,000 mark and slipped to $59,086. The leading cryptocurrency has since bounced back and is now trading at $60,770 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko.

Despite last week being a truncated one for U.S. institutional investors—markets were closed on June 19 in observance of Juneteenth— outflows from Bitcoin ETFs stood at a staggering $544 million over the course of four trading sessions.

Notably, crypto liquidations across all assets stood at $330 million in the past 24 hours on the back of the Mt. Gox news.

The flow of negative news is a worrying trend for investors, as the market sentiment was already negative due to the Federal Reserve’s more hawkish than anticipated stance. Now, Mt. Gox creditors getting repaid to the tune of approximately $9 billion worth of Bitcoin from next week could spell disaster if they start to sell their holdings.

Bitcoin miners are likely selling their BTC holdings as the network’s hash rate is down 6% from its April 24 high, and at its lowest level since March 17.

“Bitcoin miners remain extremely underpaid as prices declined and fees have plummeted,” Julio Moreno, Head of Research at CryptoQuant, said on Twitter.

Bitcoin miners have been selling their holdings to fund operations or to upgrade their mining hardware.

Moreno noted that the price support for Bitcoin currently stands at the $56,000 mark. A breach below that level could cause a “major correction.” In an earlier tweet, Moreno said that the current price action is a result of a lack of interest from traders, institutional investors, whales, and other market participants.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.