00:00 Speaker A

Just under a year after being approved by the SEC, Ethereum ETFs had a record seventh consecutive week of inflows, bringing in $326 million in the past week alone. To break down the risk on rally, I want to bring in Kristen Myers, ETF.com’s SVP of content and editor-in-chief for this week’s ETF report brought to you by Invesco QQQ. Great to have you this morning, Kristen. Talk to me about what the inflows into these ETFs are indicating to you about risk sentiment.

00:49 Kristen Myers

Yeah. So, frankly, people are being very risk-on, particularly when it comes to cryptocurrency, and that’s because the SEC has made some comments lately, all in regards to cryptocurrency staking, you know, where folks can essentially allow their cryptocurrency to earn rewards for them by validating either the Ethereum or Bitcoin networks. Now, it was unclear what the SEC and what regulators were going to say in regards to staking, particularly when it comes to these ETFs, but it seems that the SEC might actually be pretty favorable towards staking, and that is why we’re really seeing a lot of these crypto ETFs, particularly around Ethereum, really pulling in a lot of money. Now, you kind of mentioned, uh, broadly, we’ve seen $326 million of inflows into Ethereum ETFs or into Ether ETFs. ETHA, that is the iShares Ethereum Trust Etha. It pulled in over 300 million of that $326 million just last week alone. And so really, a lot of folks are piling a lot of money into particularly, again, that Ether ETF as they’re really, really wanting to be risk-on when it comes to cryptocurrency. And they’re also seeing a little bit of grabbing some of the outflows that we saw from the spot Bitcoin ETFs. That has been moving over to Ethereum, again, Ethereum really becomes a sort of mainstream crypto asset.

03:04 Speaker A

And to what degree do you expect those flows to continue going forward?

03:11 Kristen Myers

Yeah, that’s a really, really good question because what we’re seeing with cryptocurrency is a little bit interesting. These are not assets that are totally mature, and there’s a lot of questions how these assets are going to perform in a portfolio. For example, when it comes to Bitcoin, there’s still a question of whether it is digital gold, for example. And as we see a lot of volatility in the markets around trade and around inflation, recession risk and the Fed, investors really need to decide how they want these assets to perform in their portfolio. And that question, or rather the answer to that question will really truly decide how we’re going to see the inflows into these assets either continue. Now, I will say this, we are continuing to see the inflows into these assets, particularly as these assets continue to grow in terms of value. So I don’t see this trend happening anytime soon, but I do think it will be a little bit of a roller coaster ride for investors going forward.