Digital assets have attracted investment for five consecutive weeks: Trump's tariffs cannot stop this, is encryption the true safe-haven asset?

Original Title: Investors Snap Up $200M in Ethereum Funds as Interest Grows After Pectra Upgrade

Original author: André Beganski

Source:

Compiled by: Daisy, Mars Finance

(Key Points Overview)

After the Pectra upgrade on the Ethereum network, the inflow of funds into related investment products surged.

As of 2025, the total inflow of cryptocurrency funds has exceeded $7.4 billion, setting a new annual record.

CF Benchmarks CEO stated that the Pectra upgrade makes it easier for institutions to integrate staking yields into existing products.

According to a report by cryptocurrency asset management company CoinShares on Monday, as the price of Ethereum approaches $2700, Ethereum investment products saw an influx of $205 million last week, a dramatic increase compared to the $1.5 million from the previous week.

Overall, investors injected $785 million into digital asset investment products (including spot exchange-traded funds) last week, pushing the total inflow for 2025 to over $7.4 billion, setting an annual peak. "Ethereum has become the biggest highlight," noted CoinShares research director James Butterfill, while during the same period, the Solana fund experienced a $1 million outflow.

According to cryptocurrency data platform CoinGecko, the price of Ethereum fell to $2400 on Monday, with a daily decline of 4.3%. However, the asset has still accumulated a 50% increase over the past 30 days, significantly up from this month's starting price of $1850.

Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, analyzed that the Pectra upgrade has significantly lowered the technical barriers for institutional investors to integrate such yields into existing products by optimizing the staking reward mechanism.

Despite Ethereum's worst performance on record in the first quarter, CoinShares research director James Butterfill told Decrypt that investors continue to increase their positions in the asset.

"Recently, its price has experienced a significant decline," he said, "but what's encouraging is that during this period of price weakness, we actually observed a massive influx of funds."

Less than two weeks ago, Ethereum launched the first phase of the Pectra upgrade. This comprehensive upgrade includes multiple network improvements: it optimizes the scaling solution aimed at maintaining low transaction fees in the long term, while also increasing the Ethereum staking limit for individual validation nodes—this measure will further enhance the overall operational efficiency of the network.

Although Ethereum funds have performed impressively, Bitcoin products still dominate capital absorption. Last week, Bitcoin funds garnered $557 million in inflows, bringing their total inflow to $7.2 billion year-to-date, accounting for the absolute majority of the total market capital inflows.

Overall, digital asset investment products have seen net inflows for the fifth consecutive week. This brings the cumulative inflow amount to $7.5 billion year-to-date, surpassing the $7.2 billion peak set in February of this year—when the tariff policy issued by U.S. President Trump had triggered several weeks of tariff-related market turbulence.

According to statistics from cryptocurrency data provider Coinglass, since its launch in 2024, the performance of the U.S. spot Ethereum ETF has consistently lagged behind that of the Bitcoin ETF, with the former attracting a total of $2.5 billion in funds, while the latter has reached as high as $42 billion. Analysts point out that this gap is partly due to Ethereum ETF investors being unable to earn staking rewards.

Through the staking mechanism, users can assist in processing transactions and earn rewards by collateralizing assets to the network. Since Ethereum transitioned to the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in 2022, this process has become a core feature.

CF Benchmarks CEO Sui Chung stated that the Ethereum Pectra upgrade will reduce the difficulty for institutional investors to integrate staking yields into products by enhancing the certainty of staking operations. The company provides cryptocurrency pricing data for the CME Group. "This is not just a technical upgrade," he explained to Decrypt, "to launch an ETH ETF with staking features, fund managers need to build traditional finance-like infrastructure, including a clear redemption schedule, reliable liquidity, and flexible control over the assets."