The influx of Ethereum ETF funds drives ETH to overtake Bitcoin, BlackRock's demand rises

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Bitcoin dominated sentiment across the cryptocurrency market for most of this year, but this week, Ethereum took over the baton.

On July 14, Ethereum prices soared to nearly $1920, up 2.2% on the day and about 11% in the past week. In comparison, Bitcoin hovered around $64600, falling 0.3% in 24 hours and rising only 4.2% over the same period.

If we look further at the ranking based on market value, the gap will become more significant. Solana fell 1.1% to $77 and closed down weekly;TRON fell to $0.32 after falling 1.6% in the past week; and Hyperliquid's HYPE token fell 1.8% to $66, remaining at a weekly decline of 1.7%. XRP, BNB and Dogecoin each rose about 2%, but were only a small fraction of Ethereum's gain.

Why did Ethereum suddenly rise while other assets almost stagnate?

BlackRock drives almost all Ethereum ETF demand

U.S. spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds attracted US$96 million in the first three trading days of the week, exceeding the US$84 million inflow for the entire week of last week. It was also a significant rebound after a difficult period at the end of June, when investors withdrew $82 million in a single day on June 25.

On Wednesday alone, the Ethereum ETF had net inflows of approximately US$53.8 million, most of which came from BlackRock. Its ETHA fund contributed $45.3 million, while smaller ETHB products added another $4 million. The remaining eight Ethereum ETF products combined only attracted approximately US$5 million.

This is not a performance where institutional support is evenly distributed across the industry, but rather concentrated buying, driven mainly by one asset management company. At the same time, Gray's original Ethereum Trust Fund continues to move in the opposite direction. The cumulative outflow of its high-rate products since its launch is approximately US$5.3 billion. Considering that it charges an annual fee of 2.5%, BlackRock only has 0.25%, this figure is quite large.

Ethereum ETF capital inflows

Bitcoin ETF continues to release mixed signals

The U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF recorded a withdrawal of US$424 million on July 13, but rebounded quickly only two days later, with an inflow of US$181 million. Such reversals rarely reflect long-term capital allocation decisions and often point more to tactical layouts, short-term macro responses, or institutional rebalancing. This instability has become one of the themes of the Bitcoin ETF market in 2026. Funds fluctuated violently between large inflows and equally aggressive divestments, failing to form a solid trend. Despite the volatility, the Bitcoin price itself has shown surprisingly resilience.

Blockchain analysis company Nansen reported that even though tensions in the Middle East escalate, assets from the exchange continue to flow out and there has been no large-scale transfer to stablecoins. This lack of funding rotation shows that despite uncertainty about ETF demand, many holders remain firm. As for the funding rate, it is still at a neutral level, which means that those leveraged long positions that triggered the liquidation chain reaction in June have basically been cleared of the system.

Bitcoin's dominance is currently about 58.3%. Even if Ethereum has performed better than it recently, Bitcoin still firmly occupies the position of the largest reserve asset in the market.

Robinhood chain creates a new source of demand for Ethereum

Robinhood's new tier-2 blockchain launched on July 1 uses Ethereum to pay Gas fees and ultimately settle transactions back to the Ethereum main network. The platform has rapidly emerged. Robinhood Chain has recently processed more than US$800 million in daily trading volume on decentralized exchanges, and according to some market data released this week, it even briefly surpassed Ethereum's own daily DEX activity. Much of this activity comes from people trading memein rather than tokenized stocks as the network originally envisioned. Projects such as CASHCAT have driven transaction activity and created new demand for Ethereum as users pay network fees and transfer liquidity between different ecosystems. Although it is uncertain whether this trading volume will be sustainable, it represents a new source of demand for Ethereum that did not exist a few weeks ago.

Ethereum ETF capital inflows

Ethereum's lead sends a signal about risk appetite

Markets often reveal investor sentiment by leading up assets. When Bitcoin leads the gains, investors usually prefer safety; when Ethereum performs well, risk appetite tends to return. Ethereum gained 11% during the week, while Bitcoin gained only 4.2%, signaling that traders are again moving far off the risk curve. This trend is narrow and highly reliant on BlackRock's driven inflows, but it remains significant. It seems that institutional funds are willing to buy Ethereum again, but while this is good news for Ethereum, the entire cryptocurrency market is still quite picky when it comes to choosing who gets the funds.

Conclusion

Ethereum's recent rebound is one of the few bright spots in the already uneven cryptocurrency market. Ethereum ETF inflows accelerated this week, but most of them came from BlackRock's products rather than the entire market. Combined with new activity in the Robinhood chain and stability in the derivatives market, these funds provide Ethereum with momentum that Bitcoin and most mainstream altcoins currently lack. Can this advantage last? Will institutional demand expand beyond single issuers in the future?