Bitcoin falls to ‘extreme fear’ on Aug. 5 as ETFs outflow $168M

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has just tipped into the “Extreme Fear” zone for the first time in two years, as United States spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds reported outflows of $168.4 million in trading on Aug. 5.

The index, which measures market sentiment for Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency industry, fell to a score of 17 out of 100 on Aug. 5 — the lowest it has been since July 12, 2022.

The index score was 67 this time last week on July 29 — marking one of the biggest week-to-week declines in recent years.

It comes as spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs reported $168 million in outflows on Aug. 5. Most came from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF at $69.1 million and $69 million respectively, Farside Investors data shows.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust, VanEck Bitcoin ETF and Bitwise Bitcoin ETF managed to record inflows at $21.8 million, $3 million and $2.9 million, respectively, while BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust recorded a zero.

However, the spot Ether (ETH) ETFs saw a $48.8 million inflow, led by iShares Ethereum Trust at $47.1 million, according to Farside Investors.

VanEck and Fidelity’s Ether products also saw inflows of $16.6 million and $16.2 million, respectively.

Sentiment fell when Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) tanked 10% and 18% in a short two-hour window on Aug. 5.

Over $600 million in leveraged long positions were wiped out, including many altcoins that were hit far harder than Bitcoin and Ether.

Trillions of dollars were also wiped from the US stock market on Aug. 5.

The market stumble has been led by weak employment data, slowed growth among major tech stocks and revived fears of a recession.

Independent trader Bob Loukas described the last three days in a one in a 7 to 10 year event, which saw more than $500 billion wiped from the crypto market cap.

One Bitcoin analyst, Tuur Demeester, believes Bitcoin could bottom somewhere between $40,000 and $45,000 — though he cautioned against betting on it.

“In a Bitcoin bull market you don’t take bearish bets because prices can whipsaw back up in no time.”

Bitcoin has partially recovered, up 11.85% to $55,680 since Bitcoin bottomed out at $49,780 on Aug. 5, CoinGecko data shows.