Analysis: Ethereum ETF Inflows Do Not Equate to Spot Market Buying Pressure, Traditional Fund Preferences Overlay Futures Portfolio Strategy

September 9th. On-chain data analyst Murphy published an article to analyze whether "ETF Net Inflows Equal Genuine Buying Pressure." Since the launch of BTC and ETH spot ETFs, the inflow and outflow of their funds have become one of the most closely watched indicators in the market. Generally speaking, inflows are regarded as a signal of continuous accumulation by institutional investors. Whether the net inflow of ETFs can directly represent genuine buying demand is different in the case of BTC and ETH, the two mainstream assets. Analyzing the changes in CME open interest and ETF holdings of BTC, it is obvious that the price increase of BTC (the black line rising) is highly correlated with the net inflow of ETFs (the red line trending up). In contrast, the magnitude of the change in CME futures open interest (the yellow bars) is much smaller than that of ETFs. This indicates that the primary way for traditional funds to allocate to BTC is to directly buy spot ETFs to obtain investment exposure instead of establishing leverage or arbitrage positions through futures. The significant price increase of BTC is mainly driven by genuine spot buying demand, and traditional fund entry is more inclined to long-term holding. Analyzing the changes in CME open interest and ETF holdings of ETH shows that the price increase of ETH (the black line rising) is also correlated with ETF inflows (the blue line trending up). However, unlike BTC, the change in ETH's futures open interest (the purple bars) rises synchronously and accounts for a larger proportion, sometimes even exceeding half of ETF inflows. This indicates that traditional funds on ETH adopt a more combined strategy involving spot and futures, including: Basis Arbitrage: Buying spot ETFs while simultaneously shorting futures to earn the basis spread (direction-neutral); Directional Trading: But not exclusively relying on ETF spot exposure like BTC.