Digital asset investment products saw inflows of $2.2 billion last week, bringing total inflows this year to a record-breaking $29.2 billion, according to the latest report from CoinShares. report.
The strong performance, coupled with Bitcoin’s recent price increases around $70,000, pushed the sector’s total assets under management above $100 billion for the second time. These levels were last seen in early June 2024, when assets under management reached $102 billion.
Meanwhile, the increase in assets has also led to a rise in trading activity, with weekly trading volumes increasing by 67% to $19.2 billion. This figure represents 35% of all Bitcoin trading on leading, trusted exchanges.
James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, attributed the recent surge to investor optimism ahead of the looming US election, which pits former US President Donald Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to Butterfill:
“We believe that euphoria surrounding the prospect of a Republican victory was the likely reason for these influxes, as they were in the first few days of last week. As the polls changed, we saw a small outflow on Friday, highlighting how sensitive Bitcoin is to the US. elections right now.”
Bitcoin leads with record inflows
A look at asset flows shows that Bitcoin has absorbed almost all of the inflows over the past week, totaling $2.2 billion.
According to the report, US-listed Bitcoin ETFs saw particularly strong interest with net inflows of $2.22 billion – the third largest weekly inflows on record. BlackRock’s IBIT ETF led the pack, raising $2.2 billion. It was followed by Fidelity’s FBTC, which saw inflows of about $90 million.
These numbers show that crypto ETFs continue to attract strong interest. Assets in these funds have grown rapidly, reaching about half the level of gold ETFs in a relatively short time.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s recent price surge above $70,000 for the first time since June appeared to have sparked bearish sentiments from traders betting on further price increases. CoinShares reported that the price increase saw new inflows of $8.9 million into short Bitcoin products.
Despite solid positive market sentiment, Ethereum-related products saw modest inflows totaling $9.5 million last week. Butterfill explained that these numbers contrasted with strong investor interest in Bitcoin and Solana.
Last week, alternative digital assets such as Solana, Polkadot and Arbitrum collectively had cumulative inflows of approximately $6.57 million.