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

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 Saturd, 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.

Related: BTC price approaches $32K as analyst warns of 'boring' summer for Bitcoin

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.

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