Digital asset investment products faced heavy withdrawals last week, with outflows reaching $812 million, the largest weekly drawdown of the year. The bulk of the pressure fell on Bitcoin and Ethereum products, while Solana and XRP managed to draw inflows. The divergence has fueled debate over whether capital is rotating toward altcoins or whether investors are simply adjusting exposures in response to shifting macro conditions. Macro Data and the Pressure on Bitcoin Economic indicators in the United States were stronger than expected. Durable goods orders came in above forecasts, and revised gross domestic product numbers reduced confidence in earlier expectations for multiple Federal Reserve rate cuts this year. That shift weighed heavily on risk assets, including digital assets. Bitcoin products recorded $719 million in weekly outflows, while Ethereum products saw $409 million leave, their largest weekly decline of 2025. Combined, these two accounted for nearly all of the net outflow. Short Bitcoin funds, however, only recorded $1.2 million of outflows, suggesting that investors were not doubling down on bearish positioning but rather pulling back from exposure to the largest assets. Year to date, digital asset funds have still recorded $39.6 billion of inflows. That base of capital has kept aggregate trading volumes steady even during weeks of stress. Yet the scale of last week’s redemptions showed how sensitive large-cap crypto remains to shifts in the macro rate outlook, particularly when expectations for monetary easing are rolled back. Solana and XRP Inflows Offer a Counterpoint While capital left Bitcoin and Ethereum, Solana and XRP moved in the opposite direction. Solana funds attracted $291 million in inflows, and XRP recorded $93 million. Other altcoins recorded smaller movements, but the scale for these two assets stood out against the broader market backdrop. Inflows into Solana may be linked to its potential role in upcoming spot exchange-traded funds. Several issuers have filed for Solana-based funds, and the compressed timeline under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s generic listing standards has led to speculation that approvals could arrive within weeks. This expectation may have encouraged investors to position early. XRP inflows may be connected to its ongoing role in settlement and payments discussions, as well as pending applications for listed products. While regulatory questions around XRP remain unresolved in some jurisdictions, flows into investment vehicles suggest that investors are taking a more constructive stance on its prospects. Altcoin inflows , however, still represent a fraction of the capital leaving Bitcoin and Ethereum. The move is therefore better understood as selective rotation rather than a wholesale shift. The flows show investor willingness to experiment with alternative exposures, but the base case for most institutional investors remains with the two largest assets. Rotation or Temporary Divergence The divergence in flows between majors and select altcoins raises questions about the durability of the alt season narrative. Weekly movements are influenced by both macro conditions and investor positioning, making it difficult to extrapolate a sustained trend from a single week of data. Liquidity conditions also differ sharply across assets. While Solana and XRP are liquid compared to smaller coins, they lack the depth of futures markets, options contracts, and institutional custody solutions that underpin Bitcoin and Ethereum. That creates challenges for product issuers and raises risks for investors if redemptions occur during periods of market stress. Customer Spotlight: @BDACSKorea , one of only four licensed crypto custodians in South Korea, is delivering secure, institutional access to $XRP , $RLUSD , and other tokenized assets with Ripple Custody. Learn how BDACS is working with Ripple to bring the benefits of blockchain… pic.twitter.com/aLrWgcPZZv — Ripple (@Ripple) September 19, 2025 The rotation narrative rests on whether altcoin inflows can continue in the face of macro volatility. If interest rate expectations continue to shift, all digital assets could experience renewed outflows, with altcoins potentially seeing sharper moves given their thinner liquidity. For now, the data suggests that investors are not abandoning the sector but adjusting exposure within it. Altcoins benefited from that adjustment last week, but the scale of capital committed to them remains small compared with majors. The flows may mark an early sign of investors seeking diversification, but the broader direction of the market will still be set by macro policy and the performance of Bitcoin. The post Big Money Dumps Bitcoin – But Is The ‘Alt‑Season’ Narrative Overblown? appeared first on Cryptonews .
