Ethereum ETFs Smash Daily Record With Over $1 Billion in Investments

Investors threw more money at Ethereum exchange-traded funds than ever before Monday as the coin piques institutions’ interest and inches towards a new record price. 

Over $1 billion in cash hit Ethereum ETFs on Monday, Farside Investors data shows, smashing the previous single-day record of $726.6 million worth of investments, set in July.

The nine funds trading on U.S. stock exchanges now manage over $10 billion in assets. Of the nearly $1.019 in investments that poured into Ethereum ETFs on Monday, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF dominated with about $640 million worth of inflows.

ETH’s price touched $4,000 per coin on Friday for the first time since last December, and then went on to top $4,500 on Tuesday afternoon. Ethereum hadn’t traded that high since late 2021.

According to CoinGecko, Ethereum has now surged by nearly 26% over a seven-day period, and more than 50% in the last 30 days. The asset’s all-time high is $4,878, which it hit in 2021—and it’s now just 8% below a new record.

Myriad users broadly expect Ethereum to set a new all-time high this year, giving the coin an 89% chance as of this writing. (Disclaimer: Myriad Markets is a product of Decrypt‘s parent company, DASTAN.)

The price surge may be fueling interest in the ETFs… which in turn could be fueling further price gains.

“There was a moment when people saw the price going up and thought, ‘It must be good,’” Bloomberg Intelligence Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas told Decrypt. 

“Price equals sentiment,” he continued. “If it goes up, people will invent a narrative.” 

Balchunas added that the flows into the ETH ETFs were “heavy” now the coin is finally becoming easier to understand, thanks to growing interest around stablecoins. President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law last month, creating a regulatory framework for issuing such coins in the U.S.

“The narrative got a little bit more understandable with stablecoins,” he said, referring to the digital tokens backed by dollars. “Most average Joes can understand stablecoins and probably like the idea of a digital dollar.”

Balchunas credited Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors for helping to shape that narrative, as Lee has explained that the best use case for Ethereum’s network is stablecoins. That has helped investors understand the blockchain behind the second-biggest cryptocurrency, and what sets it apart from Bitcoin and other prominent digital assets.

Lee has frequently spoken about ETH on CNBC, and in June said that Ethereum was making a comeback and could be the “next Bitcoin,” as stablecoins are the network’s “killer app.”

The Wall Street bigwig has long been bullish on Bitcoin, but is now the brains behind Nasdaq-listed BitMine Immersion’s ETH treasury strategy. The miner has been aggressively buying ETH and now has $5 billion worth the cryptocurrency in its coffers. 

Other publicly traded firms, as well as institutions, are now buying the coin too. 

Ethereum hit traditional markets last year when the SEC quietly approved ETFs giving investors exposure to the coin’s price. 

The funds initially saw lackluster interest compared to the historic launch of their Bitcoin counterparts earlier in the year, but have seen growing adoption in recent months amid Ethereum’s return to the crypto spotlight.

Ethereum’s network is used by developers to build crypto products, sometimes referred to as decentralized apps or “dapps.”

Stablecoins, which are now being developed by big banks and publicly traded companies, have been branded as quicker and more affordable ways to make payments. Such digital tokens, including USDC and Tether’s USDT, often run on Ethereum’s network.