Zcash quietly had the biggest crypto ETF week on the board. Spot funds tied to the privacy-focused cryptocurrency pulled in $98.2 million for the week ending September 18, beating every other product among the 14 tracked.
Bitcoin and Ethereum, meanwhile, spent much of the week reacting to events in Washington and the Federal Reserve. By the time the dust settled, Ethereum had recorded the only net weekly outflow, while Bitcoin barely finished in positive territory.
The contrast was striking. Zcash funds have now posted four straight weeks of inflows since launching in late August, bringing their cumulative intake to $271 million.
Assets in those funds climbed 40.5% last week to $914.5 million. That puts Zcash in third place among altcoin ETF products, behind XRP and Solana and ahead of nine others.
Then came the volatility.
The crypto ETF week split in two
Bitcoin and Ethereum both started the week with money coming in. Bitcoin funds attracted $160.04 million on Monday, while Ethereum products brought in $121.02 million.
That momentum disappeared on Tuesday after the Senate rejected cloture on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act in a 49-50 vote. Bitcoin funds recorded $450.33 million in outflows that day, their largest loss of the week.
The following day brought another jolt. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to a range of 3.75% to 4%, its first increase since 2023.
Bitcoin funds lost another $295.98 million on Wednesday. Ethereum products saw $224.11 million leave the market on the same day.
Bitcoin recovered quickly. After turning positive on Thursday, its funds attracted $433.03 million on Friday, enough to offset the $746.31 million lost during Tuesday and Wednesday.
Even so, the weekly result was unusually small. Bitcoin products finished with just $6.2 million in net inflows, their lowest absolute weekly figure in 141 weeks of trading.
Ethereum had a slower recovery. Its outflows continued for three consecutive sessions, reaching $404.82 million before $143.80 million returned on Friday.
That rebound was not enough to erase the week’s damage. Ethereum funds finished with a $140 million net outflow, making them the only group among the 14 products with a negative weekly result.
Zcash, by comparison, kept attracting money without the same round trip.
Its $98.2 million weekly inflow was the largest among the crypto ETF products tracked during the period. Trading volume reached $11.42 billion, representing 32.5% of total spot crypto ETF turnover.
Solana also continued its steady run, adding $13.2 million and extending its streak to 12 consecutive weeks of inflows.
XRP brought in another $9.6 million, although that was roughly half of the $19 million recorded the previous week.
Elsewhere, Hyperliquid reversed course. After losing $26.4 million in the prior period, it attracted $3.1 million last week.
Chainlink, Avalanche, Tron, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Hedera collectively drew less than $4.8 million. BNB and Polkadot recorded no flows.
Across all 14 products, weekly net flows were negative $5 million. Yet combined assets under management rose 4.89% to $123.9 billion.
That mismatch captures the week’s story: money was moving sharply between products even as the overall pool of crypto ETF assets grew.
The next set of figures will show whether Friday’s rebound was the start of another buying wave or simply a brief return after a volatile few days.