Bitcoin posted a nice 11% gain in June, mainly driven by interest from US traders. Unlike European and Asian players, Americans have been generating steady demand throughout the month, according to analyst agency Glassnode.
Dividing crypto exchanges by region and analysing their inflows and outflows show a clearer picture. Glassnode classified Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini as the US region and Binance, OKX and Huobi as the Asian region.
As Bitcoin's price rose in 2023, Asian market players poured coins into cryptocurrency exchanges (primarily to sell them). During this time, Americans remained neutral. In June, activity in Asia dried up, while Americans showed an outflow of funds (predominantly to cold wallets). This outflow has been brought on by the anticipation of rising prices and the risk of funds in BINANCE being frozen due to legal action brought by the SEC.
Institutional investors showed a surge of interest in Bitcoin in the past week and have invested a record amount over the past year.
The excitement stems from a mass of applications to the SEC to launch Bitcoin spot ETFs. Even BlackRock, the world's largest investment company by assets under management, is included in this group. Yesterday, we talked about why optimism surrounding this news may be premature.
Institutional investors from Europe were the most active, showing a weekly inflow of $85.5 million into cryptocurrency funds. Investors from the US invested $58.9 million. One factor holding back US players is the lack of Bitcoin spot ETFs, while futures ETFs are eating up some of the profits as they move from contract to contract (a loss from a phenomenon known as contango).
Interest in Bitcoin is fuelled both by its good start in 2023 and by anticipation of the first Bitcoin spot ETF in the US. Even regulators' lawsuits against Binance, COINBASE and a number of other players haven't cooled US participants' interest in cryptocurrencies.
StormGain Analytical Group
(platform for trading, exchanging and storing cryptocurrency)
