Data acquired from digital asset investment manager CoinShares indicates that the first quarter of 2021 has reached a new record for the institutional crypto product inflows. The assets under management (AUM) for the institutional funds have reached a record high of $59 billion.
According to the April 6 CoinShares Fund Flows Weekly bulletin, Q1 2021 hit a new record with around $4.5 billion in inflows compared to the $3.9 billion recorded in Q4 2021.
The bulletin added that inflows for last week recorded, ending on April 2, totaled $106 million which helped push the total for the 3 months 11% higher compared to the previous quarter. Notably, the inflow was down on previous weeks, nonetheless, the week ending March 12 recorded a $242 million inflow.
While the institutional inflows have slowed down, CoinShares thinks that it is not suggestive of a wider slowing trend as quarterly growth rates seem to be varied. The inflows for the past week were dominated by $83 million in Bitcoin products, translating to 78% of the total, and $20M in Ethereum.
In general, volumes for Bitcoin investment products feature a relatively small share of 6.7% of the entire trading volume for the regulated and ‘trusted’ crypto exchanges. Assets under management (AUM) for active and passive cryptocurrency investment products are at an all-time high of $59 billion.
The Biggest Movers
Grayscale makes up the biggest share of this AUM figure with around $46 billion, which translates to 78% of the total. The second-biggest crypto asset fund is CoinShares with $5 billion worth of assets under management.
The European digital asset investment company has increased its institutional products this week with the introduction of a physically-backed Litecoin (LTC) exchange-traded product. In that context, the new CoinShares investment product will be originally listed on Switzerland’s regulated cryptocurrency exchange, SIX Swiss Exchange.
Litecoin ETP is the third institutional-grade product the company has launched this year. It follows a physically-backed Bitcoin ETP in January and another one for Ethereum in February.
On April 1, reports emerged that CoinShares had entered a partnership with Canadian investment fund manager 3iQ to launch a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Canada.
3iQ launched Canada’s first institutional Bitcoin fund in April 2021, and it currently has $1.7 billion in assets under management based on the CoinShares report.
