By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cryptocurrency products and funds posted record inflows in the first 11 months of the year, as institutional investors flocked into the space despite price declines in the last few weeks, data from digital asset manager CoinShares showed on Monday.
Total inflows into the sector were $9.5 billion as of Nov. 26, an all-time high. In 2020, total bitcoin inflows were $6.7 billion.
On the week, inflows reached $306 million.
Bitcoin saw its largest inflows in five weeks totaling $247 million, CoinShares data showed, following the launch of another investment product in Europe.
Invesco has launched a bitcoin exchange-traded product in Europe, media reports said. CoinDesk meanwhile reported that asset manager WisdomTree has listed a trio of crypto basket ETPs on Swiss stock exchange SIX and Frankfurt-based Börse Xetra.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency has seen inflows for 11 straight weeks with a total of $2.7 billion, CoinShares said.
Bitcoin’s inflows last week came as the price fell by 2.3%, after a 10.4% drop the previous week. On Friday, bitcoin sank nearly 9% as investors dumped the virtual currency amid fears of the impact of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron. It was last up 2% at $58,483.
“Inflation is skyrocketing and people are searching for more alternatives for their money in the bank,” said Ruud Feltkamp, chief of cloud-based automated crypto trading bot Cryptohopper.
“I don’t think it’ll take long until investors see this as a ‘cheap’ buying moment. We are still in the midst of the bull cycle, and I think rising inflation will lead to more money being allocated to stocks and crypto,” he added.
Ethereum-based products and funds, meanwhile, saw inflows for a fifth straight week, with $23 million.
In terms of inflows relative to assets under management, Polkadot and Solana continue to be the winners, with inflows representing 8.6% of AUM, or $11.5 million, and 5.9% or $14.6 million, respectively, last week.
CoinShares also announced that it has also been tracking blockchain equity ETPs, currently with an AUM of $3.7 billion. These ETPs posted inflows of $20 million last week, with a year-to-date total of $2 billion.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Nick Macfie)
