Institutions cautious as crypto products post weakest volume since October

Institutional investors are yet to regain confidence in the crypto markets, with weekly crypto investment product volume dropping to its lowest level since October 2020.

According to CoinShares’ Monday "Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly" report, $1.58 billion worth of digital asset products changed hands between July 5 and July 9.

Crypto investment products also saw outflows of $4 million for the week, with roughly $7 million exiting Bitcoin (BTC)-tracking products. However, European Bitcoin products saw inflows overall, suggesting some investors believe the worst of 2021’s bear market may be behind us.

Ethereum (ETH) products also saw minor inflows of $800,000 for the week.

CoinShares’ latest data suggests institutional investors are sitting on the fence after the previous week’s brief bullish recovery that saw $63 million injected into BTC and ETH products combined.

Institutional Bitcoin products have now posted outflows for 8 of the last 9 weeks. Sophisticated investors also offloaded Ether exposure last month, with outflows totaling $64.3 million since the week ending on June 6.

Related: Bitcoin price falls under $33K, but on-chain data hints at BTC accumulation

Despite investors appearing cautious on BTC and ETH, CoinShares notes that multi-asset products have continued to see inflows as institutions spread their risk across the sector, posting inflows of $1.2 million.

Multi-asset products have seen year-to-date (YTD) inflows of $362 million, and now represent 16.5% of assets under management (AUM) of multi-asset funds. CoinShares wrote:

“While the inflows remain relatively small in comparison to Bitcoin and Ethereum, the data does imply that investors are increasingly looking to diversify their digital asset holdings.”

Investors also showed interest in Cardano (ADA), with inflows totaling $600,00 last week. Despite the recent regulatory scrutiny aimed at Binance, Binance Coin (BNB) products saw inflows of $400,000.