Institutional Bitcoin products tag record AUM despite volume pulling back

Institutional traders have locked a record sum of capital into Bitcoin investment products despite trade volume declining during the second half of 2021.

According to CoinShares’ Nov. 15 “Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly” report, Bitcoin (BTC) investment products saw total inflows of $97.5 million between Nov. 8 and Nov. 12 — pushing the sector’s assets under management (AUM) up to a record $56 billion. Year-to-date (YTD) inflows also tagged $6.5 billion last week.

Bitcoin instruments represented 64.6% of the $150.9 million that flowed into digital asset investment products last week. While the record AUM coincided with BTC establishing a new all-time high of roughly $69,000 on Nov. 10, the markets have since pulled back by 10% to last trade hands for $62,100.

Despite CoinShares noting that digital asset investment products have seen inflows for 13 consecutive weeks, the sector has posted “subdued volumes” during the latter half of 2021.

According to the report, daily volumes have averaged at $750 million during the second half of the year — a 22% retracement compared to $960 million during H1 2021.

While Ethereum saw the strongest weekly inflows among altcoin-tracking products with $17.3 million, the figure marked a 44% decline week-over-week for the asset class. Despite volume drying up, CoinShares reports a record AUM of $21 billion for Ethereum products while the price of ETH posted record highs near $4,900 on Nov. 10

Cardano (ADA) ranked as a close second, taking in $16.4 million to post a 227% increase in weekly inflows. CoinShares said that it was unable to “identify a discernible catalyst” driving the surging investment into Cardano funds.

Institutional traders have locked a record sum of capital into Bitcoin investment products despite trade volume declining during the second half of 2021.

Related: Bitcoin has stalled, but here’s why pro traders still expect $80K by January

The price of ADA also experienced a significant bounce this week, moving from around $2.00 on Nov. 8 to around $2.36 on Nov 10. However, Cardano’s price tumbled back down to $2.11 on Friday. ADA is still down 46% from it’s September all-time high of $3.09.

Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT) and Ripple (XRP) investment products also saw inflows of $9.8 million, $5.2 million and $3.1 million respectively for the week.