Bitcoin and Ether ETFs Post Record $40B Weekly Trading Volume

Highlights:

• Bitcoin and Ether ETFs hit record weekly trading volume near $40 billion.
• Ethereum ETFs posted the largest single-day inflows, then ended the week with $59.3 million in outflows.
• Ether shows a short-term edge over Bitcoin, with muted social interest and rising relative strength.

U.S. spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have hit record weekly trading volumes. Renewed institutional interest in Ethereum drove combined trading activity to nearly $40 billion over the last five days. Over the last week, Ethereum ETFs achieved an unprecedented trading volume totaling approximately $17 billion. If this strong demand continues over the next two weeks, it could surpass last month’s total net inflow of approximately $5.43 billion. At the same time, Bitcoin ETFs showed steady growth, with weekly net inflows rising to around $561 million, up from $246 million the previous week.

Spot Bitcoin + Ether ETFs did about $40b in volume this week, biggest week ever for them, thanks to Ether ETFs stepping up big. Massive number, equiv to a Top 5 ETF or Top 10 stock's volume. pic.twitter.com/Z89uV63A3w

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) August 15, 2025

ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said that “Biggest week ever for them, thanks to Ether ETFs stepping up big.” This occurred in the same week that Bitcoin hit a fresh all-time high of $124,000 on Thursday. Ethereum also climbed to $4,784, just 1.94% below its November 2021 peak of $4,878, according to CoinMarketCap. Since Thursday, Bitcoin has declined 5.52% from its all-time high, now trading at $117,725. Ether has also fallen 6.20% from its Thursday peak, currently at $4,486.

Highest trading volume week *ever* for spot crypto ETFs…

Spot eth ETFs absolutely obliterated previous weekly trading volume record.

Wonder if there are any “no demand” naysayers still out there.

via @EricBalchunas pic.twitter.com/kxuPvxBVHw

— Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) August 15, 2025

Ethereum ETFs Show Big Inflows Then Pullback

On Monday, Ethereum ETFs saw their highest-ever single-day net inflows, reaching $1.01 billion across all funds. In the first half of August, these ETFs accumulated more than $3 billion in net inflows, recording their second-best monthly performance to date. Balchunas noted it was as if Ether ETFs had been “dormant” for 11 months and then compressed a full year’s activity into just six weeks.

However, after a nearly two-week run of strong inflows, Ether ETFs ended the week with outflows. On Friday, U.S. spot Ether ETFs recorded $59.3 million in outflows, breaking an eight-day inflow streak that had added roughly $3.7 billion to these products, according to Farside data. The end of the eight-day inflow streak is an important signal for Ether traders. They will likely watch ETF flows and any Ether treasury purchases in the coming weeks to see if Ether can reach its 2021 all-time highs again.

Ether Shows Short-Term Edge Over Bitcoin

Ether seems to hold a short-term advantage over Bitcoin, with social media activity around it remaining relatively muted, according to Santiment. Despite Ether outperforming Bitcoin over the past three months, its community has shown less overt optimism, the platform noted on X Friday. Over the last 30 days, the ETH/BTC ratio, reflecting Ether’s relative strength, has climbed 32.90%, TradingView data indicates. “The current outlook shows a slightly more bullish path for Ethereum due to the lack of interest in dip buying compared to Bitcoin,” Santiment said.

📈📉 Here are the mentions of 'lower' or 'below' and 'higher' or 'above' in relation to Bitcoin's & Ethereum's price levels. We can see that the greed spike on $BTC coincided perfectly with the ATH and local top. Meanwhile, the $ETH crowd hasn't shown nearly as much bullishness… pic.twitter.com/ctHVP0cPMt

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) August 15, 2025

Analysts see similarities between Ether’s recent rise and BTC’s post-ETF rally. Van de Poppe said the move is like Bitcoin’s ETF launch, which pushed prices higher. He added that ETFs have a big impact, with more growth likely for altcoins.

$ETH has surged more than 100% in less than two months.

This move is comparable to the $BTC ETF launch, when #Bitcoin continued to rally upwards.

We'll likely see a new ATH for $ETH and then some consolidation.

There's way more to come for this cycle. pic.twitter.com/Ah4hZkPecK

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) August 12, 2025