Institutional bulls back Bitcoin after weeks of altcoin accumulation

Institutional crypto appetites have shifted away from altcoin back to Bitcoin, with BTC investment products leading the inflows for digital asset products for the second week in a row.

Institutional investors are pivoting back to digital gold with Bitcoin (BTC) investment products posting a third consecutive week of inflows.

According to CoinShares’ latest Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, BTC investment products generated $68.7 million worth of inflows between Sept. 27 and Oct. 1, representing a 36% increase in exposure week-over-week.

While products tracking BTC have now dominated inflows to digital asset products for two weeks in a row, the bullish turn comes fresh off a record streak of outflows that persisted for eight consecutive weeks until early September.

Total inflows for digital investment products were $90 million for the week, marking the seventh consecutive week of inflows as institutional investors continue to increase exposure to digital assets.

Institutional investors also snapped up a significant amount of Ethereum (ETH) investment products, with inflows totaling $20.2 million. BTC and ETH products gained roughly 7.4% and 3.2% for the week respectively.

There was also a mixed appetite for altcoins last week. Products tracking Cardano (ADA), and Solana (SOL) posting inflows of $1.1 million and $700,000 respectively, while Polkadot (DOT) and Binance Coin (BNB) fund shed $800,000 each. Multi-asset funds also saw minimal inflows of $1.9 million.

Institutional demand for Solana appears to have bottomed out, with inflows to products tracking SOL crashing by 98% since posting highs of $38.9 million five weeks.

Despite the markets recovering from July’s violent pull-back, CoinShares highlighted that last week’s trade volume of $2.4 billion remains low compared to the $8.4 billion worth of institutional crypto products traded weekly during the height of 2021’s bull cycle in mid-May.

According to CoinShares’ estimates, institutional asset managers currently represent combined assets under management (AUM) worth $57.1 billion combined — a weekly increase of 8.5%.

Grayscale continues to dominate the sector, representing $41.1 billion or 71% of the sector’s total AUM. CoinShares XBT and Purpose funds rank in second and third with $2.2 billion and $2.1 billion worth of AUM respectively.