According to TechFlow TechFlow, on February 11th, Matrixport published an analysis stating that the inflow of funds into Bitcoin ETFs has slowed significantly, primarily due to narrowing market basis. The report points out that retail investor participation remains low, and trading volume data from the South Korean crypto market shows weak retail buying demand. Due to the lack of incremental buying support, perpetual contract funding rates have remained low for an extended period, thus compressing the profit potential of basis trading (spot-futures arbitrage) and limiting incremental fund inflows into Bitcoin ETFs.
Analysts believe this confirms their assessment in March 2024: without retail investor participation driving the futures-spot price spread, institutional funds will find it difficult to accelerate their allocation, leading to a prolonged consolidation phase.
