Digital Assets See 4th Straight Week of Inflows

Takeaways

• Digital asset investment products saw inflows totalling US$76m last week, the 4th consecutive week of inflows with year-to-date inflows now at US$230m, highlighting a decisive change in investor sentiment for the beginning of 2023.
• Bitcoin continues to be the primary investor focus, with inflows totalling US$69m, representing 90% of the total flows for the week.
• Despite the improving clarity around unstaking, Ethereum saw only US$0.7m of inflows.

Digital asset investment products saw inflows totalling US$76m last week, the 4th consecutive week of inflows with year-to-date inflows now at US$230m, highlighting a decisive change in investor sentiment for the beginning of 2023. Total investment assets under management (AuM) have risen 39% year-to-date and are now US$30.3bn, the highest since mid-August 2022. Regionally, inflows were focussed on the US, Canada and Germany, with inflows of US$38m, US$25m and US$24m respectively.

Bitcoin continues to be the primary investor focus, with inflows totalling US$69m, representing 90% of the total flows for the week. The rest of the inflows were from short-Bitcoin which totalled US$8.2m over the same period, highlighting opinion remains divided over the sustainability of this rally. While the short-bitcoin inflows remain relatively small in comparison to the long-bitcoin inflows, the last 3 weeks’ inflows total US$38m, representing 26% of total AuM. So from a relative scaling perspective are meaningful, although this trade so far hasn’t worked well year to date with total short-bitcoin AuM having fallen by 9.2%.

Altcoins saw minor inflows into Solana (US$0.5m), Cardano (US$0.6m) and Polygon (US$0.3m), while Polygon saw outflows of US$0.5m). Despite the improving clarity around unstaking, Ethereum saw only US$0.7m of inflows.

Contact James Butterfill at [email protected]