Total Crypto Fund Rises More than 600% to $5.6 billion in 2020
Total investor inflows into cryptocurrency funds and products hit $5.6 billion so far this year, up more than 600% from 2019, according to the latest data from asset manager CoinShares.
According to a report cited by Reuter, inflows plus the latest price moves lifted assets under management for the sector to nearly $19 billion in 2020.
It recalled that Assets under management ended 2019 at just $2.57 billion.
Interest in cryptocurrencies skyrocketed this year as investors saw Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and as an alternative to the depreciating dollar.
Bitcoin hit yet another all-time peak of $24,298.04 on Sunday, but was last down nearly 3% at $22,832.78, hit by a wave of risk-off moves in financial markets on worries about the new coronavirus strain.
On Monday Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, fell 4.4% to $610.14.
Inflows into investment crypto investment products totaled $335 million as of Friday, with Bitcoin flows accounting for $792.1 million, the data showed.
However, Ethereum had $207.3 million in weekly flows.
So far this year, investors pumped $15.6 billion into Bitcoin products and funds, while Ethereum inflows reached nearly $2.5 billion.
“It’s no secret that there are a few big players in the Bitcoin/crypto space and that it is mostly crowded with retail-related traders and investors,” said Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts, a technical analysis and financial charting platform for online retail investors.
“The current jump will certainly attract new retail money, but we are also already seeing adoption by more institutions. I think the question is whether institutions can afford not to participate, and for how long,” he added.
Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto fund, had $250.8 million inflows in the latest week, raising its assets under management to $15.3 billion. So far this year, Grayscale has amassed inflows of nearly $5 billion, the CoinShares report said.
Trading volume for Bitcoin hit a record $11 billion on trusted exchanges on Dec. 17, but slowed over the weekend.
Turnover, however, remained at above the average of $4 billion on Saturday and Sunday.
“It is likely that volumes will cool down over the festive period but this does not detract from the ongoing positive fundamentals, being a fiat & inflation hedge with increasing institutional acceptance and adoption”, the report reads.
Meanwhile, CoinShares said in a a similar note that as of December 2020, the market cap of bitcoin was just over 3% of the gold market.
It stressed that institutional money has started trickling in, and the last 12 months have been peppered with bitcoin ownership announcements from corporations and investment firms alike.
And yet, despite an uptick in institutional adoption and recent all-time-highs for the world’s largest public blockchain, there is still no broadly agreed-upon method or approach for valuing bitcoin as an investment asset.
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Total Crypto Fund Rises More than 600% to $5.6 billion in 2020 – Report
