Institutional exposure to altcoin products retests all-time high

Published at: Sept. 7, 2021

Institutional demand for altcoin exposure has surged to record levels, with the altcoin market share now representing a record 35% of capital locked in crypto investment products.

According to the Sept. 7 issue of CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly, nearly 40% of the past week's inflows to digital asset investment products were allocated to instruments tracking altcoins.

While $97.8 million was invested into crypto investment products combined between Aug. 30 and Sept. 3 to mark the sector’s third consecutive week of inflows, $38.9 million was invested into altcoin products.

This past week also saw a sizeable increase in institutional crypto investments, with the previous two weeks recording inflows of $24 million and $21 million, respectively.

Roughly 35% of the capital invested in institutional crypto investment products is currently locked in instruments tracking assets other than Bitcoin — comprising a retest of the metric’s all-time high from May.

Ethereum (ETH) tracking products led the altcoin pack for the second week in a row, recording inflows of $14.4 million, a 16.2% decrease from the previous week’s $17.2 million.

There was a whopping 388% spike in weekly inflows for Solana (SOL)-based products, with SOL products absorbing $13.2 million. This coincided with the price of SOL gaining 37% over the same period.

CoinShares highlighted that inflows to Solana products doubled year-to-date (YTD) this past week, with $25 million having been invested into SOL instruments during the entirety of 2021 so far. SOL-based products now represent $44 million in total assets under management (AUM).

Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT)-based funds also saw notable inflows of $6.5 million and $2.7 million, respectively.

Bitcoin (BTC) investment products bucked an eight-week trend of outflows — the longest streak on record for any digital asset product — after enjoying inflows of $58.9 million for the week. Despite the bullish shift in momentum, BTC investment products have posted outflows for 14 of the past 17 weeks.

According to CoinShares estimates, institutional asset managers currently represent a total AUM of $62.5 billion combined — nearing the record high of $66 billion posted during mid-May.

Top institutional asset manager Grayscale continues to dominate the competition, representing 73% of the sector's combined AUM with $46.2 billion.