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Crypto spot ETF flows diverge, a sign of investor rotation

Investors appear to be rotating where they are placing their crypto bets, but not necessarily fleeing the asset class entirely. 

Last month, spot bitcoin ETFs registered $206.5 million in outflows, marking their fourth straight month of redemptions. Ethereum spot ETFs saw even heavier withdrawal as $369.9 million left the investment vehicles, also marking a fourth consecutive monthly outflow. 

Since November, spot bitcoin and ethereum ETFs have posted more than $9.1 billion in cumulative outflows.

Bitcoin and ethereum are the market’s virtual ATMs, according to Chris Soriano, cofounder and chief commercial officer at BridgePort. “It’s no surprise when institutions start laying off risk or meet redemptions, they naturally sell what’s most liquid first,” Soriano told Sherwood News. “This is no different than when a traditional fund manager trims S&P 500 exposure before touching their small-cap growth positions.” 

On the other hand, newer funds based on altcoins haven’t stopped recording monthly green candles. 

Spot XRP ETFs pulled in $58 million last month and have yet to post a single negative month since their launch in November. Spot solana ETFs attracted $63 million and, likewise, remain in the black since their debut in October. 

The outflows of the two largest cryptocurrencies combined with the modest inflows of the two smaller tokens suggest a rotation regime, Soriano argued. “Institutions trimming their core liquid holdings while selectively adding to high-conviction, higher-beta positions where they think there’s more juice in the squeeze. It’s not a contradiction; it’s portfolio mechanics behaving exactly as you’d expect,” Soriano continued.

He added that XRP and solana’s markets are also thinner, which means the same dollar of buying pressure registers as a louder, more persistent inflow signal than it ever would in BTC or ETH.

Nic Roberts-Huntley, CEO and cofounder of Blueprint Finance, told Sherwood that bitcoin and etheruem’s outflows combined with XRP and solana’s inflows “may signal a broader market transition, one where capital increasingly chases specific use cases rather than the entire asset class moving in lockstep.”

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“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter” as sector sinks, with tokens hitting multiyear lows

On Thursday, altcoins swept lower as bitcoin weakened. The tokens with the biggest losses in the last 24 hours are NEAR, ethena, and Zcash, each declining double digits in the period.

Other tokens have dropped to lows not seen in over a year in the past 24 hours:

  • Ethereum dropped 4.4% to under $1,780, a level not seen since April 2025.

  • XRP declined 4.5% to an 18-month low last hit in November 2024.

  • Solana decreased 6% to trade below the $70 mark, its lowest price since December 2023.

  • Dogecoin slid below $0.09, a 27-month low last seen in February 2024.

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter as fears surrounding BTC/STRC and its potential overflow compound and overshadow anything that can be read as positive news (e.g. CLARITY movements),” according to Sean Dawson, head of research at crypto options platform Derive.xyz.

“[Altcoins] are high beta plays to BTC and are typically sold heavily in a downturn. Simply put, I’d be even more bearish on alts,” Dawson told Sherwood News.

“Further, liquidity has been drained into this year’s ‘superhot’ narrative of AI/data centers. In other words, there are just better, more exciting opportunities elsewhere,” Dawson added.

One cryptocurrency that has bucked the downtrend has been worldcoin, the native token for World, the digital identity project backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While the broader crypto market has been pushing lower, WLD has jumped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours and 90% in the past seven days, data from CoinGecko shows.

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Solana falls to a more than 3-month low

The price of solana has been struggling, dipping below $76 briefly on Tuesday, a level not seen since February.

Despite the underlying asset suffering, solana ETFs saw $115 million of inflows in May, the highest monthly figure in 2026, data from SoSoValue shows. The investment vehicles have brought in a total of $1.1 billion since their inception last year and have yet to record a monthly outflow.

However, positive ETF flows haven’t swayed traders, who are increasingly negative: prediction market-implied odds of solana dropping under $60 in the year stand at 60%, an increase from 45% three weeks ago.

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(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

"ETF flows for Solana have been positive but relatively small, so they currently only have a marginal effect on the overall price discovery for SOL," according to Carlos Guzman, research analyst at crypto trading firm GSR.

"Solana has been caught up in the broader crypto market weakness, where, outside of a few sectors that have attracted interest of late, including perpetual exchanges, privacy, and AI, most crypto token performance has been sluggish," Guzman told Sherwood News. "The meme coin narrative that drove interest in SOL in late 2024 and early 2025 has largely subsided, so the token has found itself outside of the current zeitgeist."

Meanwhile, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s Noble Mobile announced on Tuesday that it acquired Helium Mobile, a wireless carrier that runs on the solana blockchain. The two companies both declined to disclose the deal’s financial details, according to a report from Fortune.

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(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

"ETF flows for Solana have been positive but relatively small, so they currently only have a marginal effect on the overall price discovery for SOL," according to Carlos Guzman, research analyst at crypto trading firm GSR.

"Solana has been caught up in the broader crypto market weakness, where, outside of a few sectors that have attracted interest of late, including perpetual exchanges, privacy, and AI, most crypto token performance has been sluggish," Guzman told Sherwood News. "The meme coin narrative that drove interest in SOL in late 2024 and early 2025 has largely subsided, so the token has found itself outside of the current zeitgeist."

Meanwhile, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s Noble Mobile announced on Tuesday that it acquired Helium Mobile, a wireless carrier that runs on the solana blockchain. The two companies both declined to disclose the deal’s financial details, according to a report from Fortune.

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