Crypto inflows reached $785 million last week, pushing the year-to-date total to $7.5 billion. This marks a complete recovery from the outflows seen between February and March.
Ethereum stood out among the positive digital asset investment product inflows. The Pectra upgrade and network leadership changes have driven this sentiment shift.
Pectra Upgrade Impacts Crypto Inflows Last Week
The latest CoinShares report shows total crypto inflows of $785 million for the week ending May 17. Although slightly down from the $882 million of the previous week, this marks the fifth consecutive week of positive inflows.
These positive inflows continue as the market continues to ignore Trump's tariffs. The US leads in positive inflows, surpassing Germany and Hong Kong with $681 million compared to $86.3 million and $24.2 million respectively.
Looking closer, Bitcoin (BTC) saw a slight decrease compared to the previous week. CoinShares researcher James Butterfill attributes this withdrawal to US economic indicators.
"Bitcoin attracted $557 million in inflows, down from the previous week, possibly due to continued hawkish signals from the US Federal Reserve. Bitcoin short products have seen their fourth consecutive week of inflows, totaling $5.8 million, reflecting investor positioning amid recent price increases," reads a passage in the report.
However, Ethereum was the highlight of last week's crypto inflows. According to the CoinShares report, Ethereum inflows reached $205 million, a significant increase from the previous report's $1.5 million.
Crypto inflows last week. Source: CoinShares reportButterfill attributes this optimism to the Ethereum Pectra upgrade and Tomasz Stańczak's advancement to co-CEO.
"Ethereum was the standout performer, with $205 million in inflows last week and $575 million year-to-date, showing new investor optimism following the successful Pectra upgrade and the appointment of new co-CEO Tomasz Stańczak," Butterfill wrote.
As it happened, the Pectra upgrade went live on mainnet on 05/07, marking the network's biggest change since the 2022 Merge. On one hand, EIP‑7251 raises the validator limit to 2,048 ETH. Meanwhile, EIP‑7702 brings smart wallet functionality and a significant step towards account abstraction.
Similarly, Tomasz Stanczak, newly appointed as co-CEO of the Ethereum Foundation (EF), has a deep history in Ethereum's core development. He focuses on statelessness to enhance Ethereum's scalability and decentralization by reducing node storage requirements.
However, robust statelessness has been given lower priority due to complexity and focus on rollups, although Stanczak's leadership might change this focus.
"The Ethereum Foundation is delighted to welcome Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stanczak as co-CEOs. This new leadership structure marks an exciting new chapter in the Foundation's development as we continue to support a growing Ethereum ecosystem," EF stated in March.
While Ethereum and other altcoins saw positive inflows, Solana went against the trend. It recorded $0.89 million in crypto outflows. This aligns with its recent trend of declining TVL, down 64%.
