Bitcoin (BTC), which rallied 40% in January, triggered the largest institutional cash inflows since June 2022, data shows.
In its “Funds Flows of Digital Assets” weeklyReporting on Jan. 30, digital asset trading and investment group CoinShares confirmed that $117 million flowed into crypto in the last week of the month.
“Unsold” Institutions in Post-Merger Ethereum
Bitcoin is still on the radar as an institutional investment opportunity.
As evidenced by the latest data from CoinShares, it took a few weeks for BTC price action to recoup previous losses to spark a major change in investment habits, and not just in the United States.
“U.S. bears last week appear to have changed their minds with inflows of $117 million, including $26 million from the United States,” CoinShares wrote in a post. Twitter thread accompanying the report.
“This is 3 times the amount of last week. Total assets under management had risen to US$28bn, 43% above November 2022 lows.”
Germany was the surprise leader, responsible for 40% of the week’s tally, followed by Canada.
However, even though altcoins have rallied in line with Bitcoin, institutions seem to be primarily interested in BTC when it comes to cash.
In the words of CoinShares, “the focus has shifted almost entirely to Bitcoin,” a fact that has not gone unnoticed by market participants eyeing a potential shift in preferences away from the Ethereum-focused DeFi camp.
“This is evidence that institutional money does not sell in the Ethereum thesis”, popular Twitter account Pillage Capital argument.
The numbers also gave the lie to testing times for certain altcoins, with CoinShares highlighting Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Stellar (XLM), and Uniswap (UNI). Nonetheless, Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA) and Polygon (MATIC) all saw net inflows.
“Multi-asset investment products saw outflows for the ninth consecutive week totaling $6.4 million, suggesting that investors prefer select investments,” he said.
GBTC plunges towards a new record discount
Meanwhile, after staging a marked comeback, Bitcoin’s largest institutional investment vehicle appears to be losing steam once again.
Related: Bitcoin Sees a Golden Cross Last Hit 2 Months Before All-Time High
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) traded at a 43% discount to Bitcoin’s spot price on February 7, having recovered to 36.2% in mid-January.
As Cointelegraph continues to report, Grayscale is currently caught up in the difficulties plaguing parent company Digital Currency Group following the breakup of FTX in November.
Even before that, however, GBTC was struggling as Grayscale tries to force US regulators to allow it to make it the country’s first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
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