Crypto market analysts speculate that the recent collapse of altcoins may be associated with a recent surge in spot Bitcoin ETF outflows.
On Monday, the crypto markets plunged into a sea of red, with some altcoins losing over 10%.
An industry analyst told Cointelegraph that there is “no clear catalyst” to explain the reason for the decline.
The crypto market cap has decreased by 3.5% in the past 24 hours, reaching $2.46 trillion.
CoinGecko data indicates that Shiba Inu and Avalanche were the most severely affected altcoins among the top 20 by market cap on June 17, with losses of 12.7% and 10.6%, respectively.
Uniswap (UNI) and Dogecoin also experienced a double-digit decline, while Solana’s price declined by 9.4%.
Although it experienced only a minor 0.1% increase, Ripple’s XRP was the sole non-stablecoin that did not end up in the red.
In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin and Ether have experienced a 1.3% and 4.4% decline, respectively.
Chief investment officer Henrik Anderrson of Apollo Crypto, an asset manager, was unable to identify the primary cause of the market decline.
However, he believes that the recent decrease in interest in spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) may have been a contributing factor.
“[There’s] no clear catalyst from what I can see, but [it] looks like negative BTC ETF flows led to weakness in alts, which triggered liquidations of leverage long traders in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin,” Andersson told Cointelegraph.
According to data from Farside Investors, the spot Bitcoin ETFs have experienced outflows on five of the last six trading days.
10xResearch, a digital asset firm, also linked the recent altcoin crisis to the drop in spot Bitcoin ETF flows over the last week, but it believes the relationship is the inverse.
“It has come as a surprise that Bitcoin is failing to rally despite weak inflation data, but the Ethereum and altcoin crash might have been predictable,” 10xResearch added.
Bitcoin Miners Up Double Digits Amid BTC’s Price Slump
An industry analyst has stated that Bitcoin mining stocks have been performing exceptionally well in recent weeks and are currently regaining some of the territory they lost during April’s halving event.
“Mining stocks underperformed prior to the halving due to fears about post-halving profitability,” Mitchell Askew, head analyst at Blockware Solutions, told Cointelegraph.
However, that worry has been alleviated, and mining stocks are returning to equilibrium after lagging in comparison to Bitcoin and its proxies, such as MicroStrategy.
Askew observed the Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners exchange-traded fund, WGMI, has increased by around 54% since the halving event, indicating that market confidence has returned to the mining sector.