Ethereum briefly climbed above $2,700 on Tuesday morning, setting a weekly high, before backtracking slightly.
At the time of writing, ETH is trading for $2,646, about 1.5% lower than it was this time yesterday, per data from CoinGecko.
The price action comes a day after the U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs booked a tepidly good performance with inflows of $5 million, according to Farside Investors. Monday marked the break of a 3-trading day streak of outflows, during which the ETH funds saw investors withdraw $42.4 million.
But perhaps more notably, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) saw its first day without outflows. When Grayscale's first Ethereum fund, founded in 2017, was converted and began trading as a spot ETH fund on July 23, it had more than $9 billion worth of assets under management. But since then, its AUM has shrunk by $2.2 billion.
Keep in mind, though, that tracking the performance of crypto-based funds using U.S. dollars includes price fluctuations. When the funds began trading three weeks ago, ETH was still trading in spot markets in the $3,500 range. But since then, the price of Ethereum has dropped by more than 23%.
But the institutional interest isn't limited to the U.S. ETFs—or even new, said Spectrum Markets, a Frankfurt-based trading firm that offers access to crypto-based funds. They mark the start of serious institutional consideration of Ethereum with the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) issuance of its first digital bond in 2021.
"Despite Bitcoin's advancements, many investors tend to favour Ethereum due to technological improvements such as ‘staking,’ which allows for dividend payments," wrote Michael Hall, Head of Distribution at Spectrum Markets in a July invest.
Hall noted that interest has been picking up among retail investors, adding that the firm's SERIX value for Ethereum—a metric it uses to gauge retail trader sentiment—increased in July from 110 to 113. Meanwhile, the same measure for Bitcoin remained flat at 108, he wrote.
BRN analyst Valentin Fournier noted that Bitcoin ETFs have seen their own turnaround, taking in $28 million worth of investments on Monday.
"This shows a certain resilience during times of fear, potentially helping Bitcoin’s volatility to decrease over the long term," he wrote in a note shared with Decrypt.
By his estimation, Bitcoin is the more likely of the two to see a big retrace before the end of the month.
"As we remain bullish on both the short and long term, we recommend increasing positions while maintaining a balance between BTC and ETH," Fournier wrote. "Despite this bullishness, Bitcoin could revisit lower levels between the end of August and the end of September. We recommend decreasing exposure before that happens."