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Bitcoin and Ethereum Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs) have been receiving hefty institutional inflows over the past week, just as the current crypto carnage began scaling major capitulatory levels, helped along by the implosion of FTX and the resulting cascade of evaporating collateral across the DeFi space.
Perhaps, institutional investors have also started inversing Jim Cramer's recommendations. After all, the CNBC host remains one of our most favored contrarian indicators to time the market, given his unceasing ability to represent the prevailing consensus view or the herd mentality.
A wild bottom signal appears! This morning on national television, @jimcramer says $CRAMER is down 70% and that you should "Sell all joke coins!"
This is going to be a fun one to circle back to. pic.twitter.com/9I5VCCcVN5
— Not Jim Cramer (@cramercoin) November 11, 2022
Toward the end of last week, Jim Cramer exhorted investors to dump all "joke coins."
Jim Cramer says investors should "cash out on crypto while they can."
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) November 14, 2022
Now, the CNBC host has come forward with the recommendation that investors should "cash out on crypto while they can."
Institutions have mostly been buying last week's sell-off judging by the amount of ETP Inflows that we track!
There is been +80.4 mn USD of net inflows into crypto ETPs last week
There were 4 consecutive days of net inflows except on Friday with only -4.6 mn USD of net outflows pic.twitter.com/9cyIXoW1La
— André Dragosch⚡ (@Andre_Dragosch) November 14, 2022
While Cramer has been growing progressively bearish on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the rest of the crypto sphere recently, institutional investors appear to be doing the exact opposite. As explained by André Dragosch, the head of research at Iconic Funds, in the tweet above, crypto ETPs have seen a net inflow of $80.4 million over the past week, with Bitcoin gaining $26.8 million in net inflows and Ethereum ETPs recording inflows of $13.4 million. Altcoin-focused products have witnessed a very slight net outflow of $0.2 million over the same period. Of course, ETPs constitute just a fringe segment of the crypto sphere. However, the inflow imbalance here is quite notable.
Do note that Jim Cramer's latest about-face on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is likely not a result of any particular insight. After all, this is the same person who had called FTX's disgraced former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, the "JP Morgan of this generation" not too long ago. Consequently, we interpret Cramer's recent bearishness as a manifestation of the crypto sector's sentiment reaching a local saturation point, which might yield stronger near-term gains.
Sam Bankman-Fried doles out credit lines to save crypto institutions. He's the new JP Morgan!
— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) June 22, 2022
Nonetheless, as we've continued to note in our previous posts, Bitcoin has yet to complete its customary 80-percent-plus correction from the previous all-time highs that has characterized each of the cryptocurrency's preceding bear markets. As such, until we get such a correction, our bias will remain bearish.
