What to know:

The U.S.-listed spot bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen record outflows over the past four months, confirming that a full-blown crypto market is underway.

Investors have pulled $6.39 billion from bitcoin ETFs over four straight months of outflows, the longest monthly losing streak since the funds launched in January 2024, according to data source SoSoValue data.

Ether ETFs have also fallen out of favor, bleeding $2.76 billion over the past 4 months.

These huge outflows indicate that institutional appetite for digital assets has collapsed, which explains the price losses in the two tokens. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, peaked at over $126,000 in early October and has since almost halved to $67,000. Ether has had a much steeper fall, down over 60% from highs above $4,950 in August last year.

Alternative investment vehicles such as spot ETFs emerged as the clearest and most observable source of sustained institutional activity after their debut in early 2024. Investors poured billions in 2024 and in months following pro-crypto Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. elections, greasing the bull run in both tokens at the time.

The demand, however, evaporated after the early October crash, which was supposedly led by pricing inefficiencies on offshore exchange Binance. Recent days have seen sporadic inflows, but analysts say a sustained trend is needed for any meaningful market bounce.