Ethereum News: BlackRock to Buy Discounted Grayscale Ether, Mirroring Previous Bitcoin ETF Strategy

•  BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is reportedly planning to purchase discounted Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) shares.
• Analysts have come out strong with optimism suggesting that the number of outflows from ETHE may subside soon.

The new Spot Ethereum ETFs have rather experienced a less-than-ideal first week. With a substantial amount summing to $1 billion in net inflows, Grayscale ETHE has cast a long dark shadow with $1.5 billion in net outflows. 

Moving forward from this, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is reportedly on the verge of purchasing discounted Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) shares. This situation will mirror when the firm bought discounted shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) before launching its own Bitcoin ETF.

Data from Farside Investors reveals a total contrast between the new Ether ETFs and the Grayscale Trust. Having almost all Ethereum ETFs generate substantial amounts of inflow, the latter collectively saw a net outflow of $340 million in their debut week. This amount from combined new EtherETFs (excluding ETHE of course) has been dwarfed by the staggering $1.5 billion outflow from ETHE over the same period.

This rocky start of Ether ETFs has also had an impact on the ETH price. Last week saw both ETH and BTC prices plummet by 5% and 25 respectively. At the time of writing, ETH is swapping hands at $3,339.70 marking a 1.14% and 4.97% decline in the last 24 hours and the past week respectively.

Excluding Grayscales ETHE, the new Ether ETFs’ future is not entirely bleak. In the first four days, financial titan Blackrock attracted $442 million in net inflows. Bitwise’s ETHW and Fidelity’s FETH followed closely with $265.9 million and $219.4 million, respectively. VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, and 21Shares’ ETFs also saw inflows, totaling $87.9 million.

On the other hand, Grayscale has become a focal point of attention. Taking into consideration the enormous rate of outflows, analysts have come forward suggesting that at that rate, the trust could deplete its assets within the next four weeks.  However, this is not the same case for Quinn Thompson, founder of digital asset hedge fund Lekker Capital. According to Quinn, sourcing his reasoning from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) earlier this year, these outflows might start to die off.

Via X (formerly Twitter) Quinn stated that ETHE experienced a similar fate to GBTC in late January, just before Bitcoin found a bottom and started tracing its way up the top.

Supporting Quinn’s line of thought is Mads Eberhardt, senior crypto analyst at Steno Research who also thinks that Ether ETFs are following the same route observed with GBTC. According to Mads, in a recent social media post:

The Ethereum ETF net outflow is yet to subside, but it will likely happen this week, when it does, it’s up only from there.