Institutional Investors Revert To Ethereum Amid Market Turbulence

The world’s second-largest crypto to date – Ethereum, has been swimming against the tides in the past 30 days, with massive swings both upwards and downwards. However, the price fluctuations did not scare institutional investors, who are reverting their sentiment towards the altcoin leader.

It turns out that professional investors are increasingly seeking exposure to Ethereum, especially after the highly anticipated Merge is just around the corner. Ethereum-based products, according to CoinShares’ weekly report, saw a third straight week of inflows, reaching a high of $7.6 million for institutional Ether funds, while Bitcoin (BTC) funds continued to outflow with a loss of $1.7 million.

“The inflows suggest a modest turnaround in sentiment, having endured 11 consecutive weeks of outflows that brought 2022 outflows to a peak of US$460M,” CoinShare stated, adding that the shift in interest is possibly due to the successful Merge event on one of Ethereum’s testnets, which could be pivotal for Ethereum’s future.

Furthermore, institutional investors started introducing capital back into Ether-based funds after a $423 million outflow week in late June.

Ethereum vs Bitcoin – Vitalik Edition

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, raged against Swan Bitcoin’s managing editor Nick Payton, who called proof-of-stake crypto projects “securities”. “The fact that you can vote on something to change its properties is proof that it’s a security,” Payton noted, adding fuel to the fire between the crypto industry and regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The question of whether or not Ethereum classifies as security still remains open, with Ethereum investors and enthusiasts leading a fierce battle with regulators.

Buterin turned directly toward Payton, claiming that his statement is a “bare-faced lie.”

“It's amazing how some PoW proponents just keep repeating the unmitigated bare-faced lie that PoS includes voting on protocol parameters (it doesn't, just like PoW doesn't) and this so often just goes unchallenged. Nodes reject invalid blocks, in PoS and in PoW. It's not hard.” Buterin wrote in response to Payton’s tweet.

“Also, small grammar nuance: in English when talking about things like proof of stake, we don't say "it's a security", we say "it's secure". I know these suffixes are hard though, so I forgive the error,” Buterin added.

Despite Buterin’s occasional online battle with Bitcoin and Proof-of-work enthusiasts, Bankless founder Ryan Sean Adams called the retort “the spiciest Vitalik tweet I’ve ever read.”

Ethereum increases its interest, but not its price

Despite the institutional interest and Buterin’s fierce defense, Ethereum still makes it hard for its holders pricewise, as the second-largest crypto to date still suffers from increased volatility. Over the past seven days, Ethereum went up and down, reaching a high of $1,262.89, but also a low of $1,020.81 in a push to keep ETH levels above $1,000.

The overall crypto market is also not helping Ethereum to keep its head above $1,100 as almost all of the top 100 projects are in the red, losing anywhere between three and ten percent on the day. Looking at the weekly charts, the trend is similar, but few projects like Quant (QNT), Aave (AAVE), and Polygon (MATIC) have actually increased in value.