The trend of inflows into digital asset investment products seen at the end of 2023 continued into 2024 as data provided by CoinShares shows that the total assets under management (AuM) for globally listed products increased $151 million during the first week of the new year.
The latest inflows bring the total inflows since the ruling in favor of Grayscale in their lawsuit against the SEC to $2.3 billion, representing 4.4% of total AuM, James Butterfill, CoinShares head of research, said.
Weekly crypto asset flows. Source: CoinShares
The United States led in terms of investments made by exchange country as anticipation for the approval of the first spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) excited U.S.-based investors and prompted them to increase their allocations.
Flows by country. Source: CoinShares
A total of $83.6 million flowed into U.S.-listed products, representing 55% of the total inflows, while Germany and Switzerland accounted for 21% and 17% of the total, respectively.
“Bitcoin saw the largest share of inflows at US$113m with total inflows over the last 9 weeks representing 3.2% of AuM,” Butterfill said. “Conversely, short-bitcoin saw outflows for the first week of the year totaling US$1m.”
Flows by asset. Source: CoinShares.
Butterfill noted that if there was a large cohort of investors that “truly believed that launch of the ETF in the US is a ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ event,” then the market “would surely expect to see inflows into short-Bitcoin ETPs.”
The reality is that “outflows over the last 9 weeks have amounted to US$7m,” he said, which suggests that the majority of investors are not expecting a price sell-off following approval.
Ethereum also extended its streak of inflows with an increase of $29 million, bringing the nine-week running total of inflows to $215 million, “a market turn-around in sentiment,” Butterfill said. “Solana on the other hand, has not had such a good start to the year, with outflows totaling US$5.3m.”
Other notable altcoin inflows include $3.7 million into Cardano (ADA), $2 million into Avalanche (AVAX), and $1.4 million into Litecoin (LTC).
“Blockchain equities have also had a good start to the year, seeing US$24m inflows over the last week,” Butterfill concluded.
Data provided by Alternative shows that the sentiment in the crypto market has been in “Greed” territory since October 24, its longest streak since November 2021, near the end of the previous bull market.
Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Source: Alternative
At the time of writing, Bitcoin price has surged higher, spiking 7.7% on the daily chart to hit $47,286, its highest price since April 3, 2022.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
