CoinShares head of research, James Butterfill, said the outflows come despite the improved certainty of the Merge. 2833 Total views 44 Total shares Listen to article 0:00 News Institutional investors may be wavering ahead of the Ethereum Merge, with Ether (ETH)-based digital asset investment products seeing an outflow of $61.6 million, signaling concerns about the success of the upgrade.
In its digital asset fund flows weekly report, fund manager CoinShares reported that Ether-based investment products made up for the majority of total outflows over the Sept. 5-11 week leading to the markets fifth consecutive week of outflows.
Report author James Butterfill said the outflows have come despite the improved certainty of the Merge, which could highlight a concern among investors that the event might not go as planned, referring to the upcoming Ethereum Merge set for Sept. 15.
This is despite the likelihood of a successful Merge improving over the last week, with the Bellatrix upgrade passing through relatively unscathed on Sept. 6.
84.6% of Ethereum nodes are now also Merge ready, according to Ethereum node data aggregator Ethernodes, which is up 15.1% from last weeks 73.5% Merge ready rate.
Butterfill also noted that CoinShares has previously argued that there are unlikely to be any issues arising from the Ethereum upgrade as the technical specifications of the hard fork have been rigorously tested.
Related: Institutional ETH sentiment turns positive after 11 weeks of outflows
Meanwhile, there is currently still no consensus on whether the Ethereum Merge has been factored into the ETH price, which currently sits at $1,688, and whether the Merge will be a buy the rumor, sell the news event.
Polygon chief security officer Mudit Gupta is of the view that the Ethereum Merge has been priced into ETH because the Merge itself is public knowledge.
If it’s public knowledge, it’s already priced in.
If it’s not public knowledge, it’s insider trading.
Don’t get rekt trying to gamble Mudit Gupta (@Mudit__Gupta) September 7, 2022
On the other hand, a crypto researcher who goes by the name punk4936 on Twitter believes that a 99% cut in ETH issuance and a 99.9% increase in energy efficiency following the Merge isnt reflected in the current ETH price.
Ethereum is about to get a 99% cut in issuance and a 99.9% cut in energy usage, the merge is not priced in 4936 (@punk4936) September 7, 2022
The Ethereum Merge will see the networks consensus mechanism transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), which is scheduled to take effect on Sept. 15 at about 3:20 am UTC time, according to Blocknative. #Blockchain #Ethereum #Investments #Adoption #Digital Asset #Cryptocurrency Investment Related News The biggest crypto heists of all time Data from bitcoin processor suggests crypto winter is not affecting widespread adoption Liquid staking is key to interchain security Latin America is ready for crypto just integrate it with their payment systems How blockchain technology is changing the way people invest Crypto noobs: What to tell newcomer friends about digital currency
