Amid crypto bear market, institutional investors scoop up Bitcoin: CoinShares

Bitcoin investment funds are seeing positive inflows while Ether funds continue to be drained, according to industry data.

Digital asset investment products registered positive inflows last week, though the gains were mainly concentrated in Bitcoin (BTC) funds, signaling a more cautious approach to crypto allocation on the part of institutional investors.

Bitcoin investment products saw cumulative inflows totaling $126 million in the week ending Saturday, according to the latest fund flows report from CoinShares. Year-to-date, Bitcoin investment funds have quietly added $506 million in net inflows.

Investors appear to be allocating to Bitcoin at the expense of Ether (ETH) and other altcoins. Ether funds saw $32 million in outflows, marking the ninth consecutive week of declines. Outflows from Ether investment products have totaled $357.4 million this year.

Meanwhile, investments in multi-asset crypto funds rose by $4.3 million last week, bringing the year-to-date total to $201.3 million.

Grayscale remains the single largest digital asset manager with over $27 billion under management. Roughly 99% of Grayscale’s total assets are devoted to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, also known as GBTC.

Unable to escape the gravitational pull of the traditional financial markets, crypto assets have been in a protracted downtrend for much of 2022. BTC price endured nine consecutive weekly declines — the longest in history — as investor sentiment entered a prolonged period of “extreme fear” on the Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index.

*June 6, last week and last month: Bitcoin’s Fear & Greed Index has been in extreme-fear territory.*

Bitcoin narrowly avoided its tenth down week in a row by closing at $29,900 on Sunday — a mere $450 higher than the previous week.

Nevertheless, there are some positive signs that institutional investors are buying the dip. In addition to the CoinShares report, a Canadian spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund operated by Purpose Investments scooped up thousands of BTC last month. By May 13, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF had registered its highest-ever Bitcoin holdings at 41,600 BTC

Massive inflows for the Canadian #Bitcoin Purpose spot ETF. 6.9k $BTC have been added to the fund yesterday. By far the biggest inflow we have seen (2nd largest was 2.9k BTC). AUM is at a new all-time high of 41.6k BTC.

Someone bought that cheap bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/zDkhcjlP1V

— Jan Wüstenfeld (@JanWues) May 13, 2022