Inflows into ETFs have fueled crypto gains—why?

In recent days there have been substantial capital inflows into crypto ETFs.

Although not every single day ended with overall net inflows, the correlation with price movements is quite clear. 

In fact, these inflows appear to have fueled the recent gains in crypto. 

Ethereum ETFs

The most emblematic recent case is that of Ethereum.

Starting from Friday, May 1st, almost all trading sessions, except for a single one, ended with overall net inflows into its ETFs. 

It started on Friday the 1st with more than 101 million, and it ended on Friday the 8th with more than 3 and a half million. 

The two days with the largest inflows were indeed Friday the 1st and Tuesday the 5th, while the only negative day was Thursday, May 7th with total outflows of almost 104 million. 

In total, during the first six trading sessions of May total inflows amounted to 171 million dollars, equal to more than 28 million in daily average. 

Over the same days the price of ETH rose from $2,250 to over $2,400, although by Friday it had fallen back to $2,270.

Over the weekend, however, it rose slightly again, reaching a peak above $2,380 yesterday, while today it is fluctuating around $2,340. 

Although this is not an exceptionally strong streak, it is still in line with the ETF inflows mentioned above. 

Bitcoin ETFs

The situation for Bitcoin is more nuanced.

In fact, the last two trading sessions (Thursday the 7th and Friday the 8th) ended with clear capital outflows from ETFs, -268 million dollars and -147 respectively. 

In any case, in total, during the first six trading sessions of May 2026 overall inflows exceeded 1.2 billion dollars, with more than 210 million in average daily inflows. 

From this point of view the trend was identical to that of Ethereum, except for the single day of Friday the 8th.

However, the price trend was clearly better than that of ETH.

The month started at just over $76,000, and the local peak was reached on Wednesday the 6th above $82,000. 

In the following days it did fall back, but always remaining above $79,000, and yesterday it seems to have resumed its run up to today’s $81,000. 

The other cryptos

There are very few true spot ETFs on US exchanges for other cryptos, and the only ones really worth mentioning are those on XRP and Solana. 

For Solana, however, total inflows in May so far have been only 39 million dollars, that is with a very low daily average of just over 6.5 million.

For XRP they have been around 100 million dollars, so with an average of about 16 million per day. 

These figures are much lower than those for Ethereum and especially those for Bitcoin, which suggests that the data relating to ETFs on XRP and Solana should not be considered particularly interesting. 

After all, at the moment crypto markets are dominated by Bitcoin, with only Ethereum playing a relatively important secondary role right now, net of a few speculative bubbles on some altcoin which, however, are short-lived. 

The effect of ETFs on prices

Although crypto ETF managers sell and buy spot not on exchanges but mainly via OTC desks, they do indirectly affect prices. 

Indeed, prices are formed on exchanges, but it can happen that the same OTC desks used by ETF managers are sometimes forced to buy or sell on spot exchanges, or that their purchases and sales in any case help increase or decrease selling and buying pressure. 

Therefore, the effect on prices is neither direct nor immediate, but it is often present, especially in the case of continuous trends and significant volumes. 

It should not be forgotten that since crypto ETFs started buying, for example, Bitcoin more than two years ago, the number of BTC on exchanges has been continuously decreasing, thus also reducing selling pressure for Bitcoin on crypto exchanges.