Photo credit: Bastian Riccardi/Pexels

United States spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted $106.78 million in net inflows on July 23, with more than $1.11 billion in trading volume.

Among the nine Ether funds approved to commence trading on Tuesday on their respective exchanges by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Blackrock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF saw the most single-day net inflows at $266.55 million, followed by the Bitwise Ethereum ETF, with $204.02 million, data from SoSoValue shows.

The Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust (ETH), and Franklin Ethereum ETF (EZET) also recorded inflows at $71.31 million, $15.15 million, and $13.21 million, respectively.

Net inflows were also seen on VanEck’s ETHV ($7.64 million), 21Shares’s CETH ($7.47 million), and Invesco and Galaxy’s QETH ($5.54 million).

However, the daily positive flows were offset by the $484.11 million outflows from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE).

Net inflows into the Ether funds on their first trading day, while significant, are 83% fewer than the $628.07 million into Bitcoin ETFs on their debut in January. However, the Bitcoin funds’ 12-day positive inflow streak was snapped on the last trading day, recording $77.97 million in net outflows.

‘Underwhelming demand’ for ETH ETFs

The debut of spot Ether ETFs in the US marked a milestone for the crypto industry, which gives investors access to the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap via new trading vehicles. However, some crypto players believe the new funds could be met with lackluster flows.

In a recent report, market maker Wintermute projects that Ether ETFs would collect $4 billion of inflows at most from investors over the next year. The company does, however, see Ether’s price gaining as much as 24% over the next 12 months, driven by those inflows.

Kaiko, a research firm, shared the same views, with its head of indices, Will Cai, citing the “underwhelming demand for Ether futures ETFs launched last year.

Cai emphasized that Ether’s price, regardless of its long-term trajectory, will be highly reactive to initial investment levels in the spot ETFs. The firm’s data supports this, revealing a sharp rise in Ether’s implied volatility over the weekend, with contracts expiring on July 26 jumping from 59% to 67%.

“This suggests less conviction around the ETH launch, as traders are willing to pay higher premiums to hedge bets,” the report said.

The launch of the Ether funds failed to bring new instant highs to the price of ETH, which exchanges hands at $3,459.79, down 1.8%, at the time of writing, per CoinGecko.

Read more: Bitcoin, Ether poised for strong July perfomance, analysts say