According to Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM), the recent market sell-off was likely led by retail and other crypto-focused investors rather than traditional institutions.
While Bitcoin and ether both fell after Oct. 10, spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) BTC futures saw little forced selling, the report notes.
Bitcoin ETF outflows totaled just $220 million, or 0.14% of assets under management, compared to $370 million for ether ETFs, or 1.23%, analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in Thursday’s report.
A similar trend occurred in CME futures, with minimal Bitcoin liquidations and larger Ether sales, which the bank’s analysts attributed to traders motivated by their risk-reducing momentum.
The largest losses occurred in perpetual futures, where open interest on Bitcoin and Ether contracts fell by around 40%, outpacing the decline in spot prices, the report added.
JPMorgan said the scale of the unwind indicates that crypto-native traders are the main driver of the slowdown, with ether being hit harder than bitcoin.
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