Institutions dump BTC as volume soars for Ether funds

Institutional investors appear to have offloaded nearly $100 million worth of Bitcoin exposure this past week while Ether investment product volumes surged.

CoinShares’ weekly Digital Asset Fund Flows report has revealed last week saw the largest Bitcoin in the report’s history as Elon Musk’s Twitter account again wreaked havoc in the crypto markets.

The May 17 report notes $98 million exited Bitcoin investment products last week, equating to 0.2% of total assets under management, or AUM. “While small, this marks the largest outflow we have recorded,” CoinShares noted.

Amid the tumultuous market conditions for Bitcoin, institutional investors appear to have ramped up their accumulation of Ether and other alternative cryptocurrencies, with the report identifying inflows to crypto asset investment products of $48 million when excluding Bitcoin.

Ethereum represented more than half of flows to altcoin investment products with $27 million. Cardano and Polkadot also saw increased inflows of $6 million and $3.3 million respectively.

CoinShares also notes that May is shaping up to be the first month in which investment volume for institutional Ether products has outpaced that of Bitcoin products. The report stated:

“The data impl[ies] that investors have been diversifying out of Bitcoin and into altcoin investment products.”

Digital asset investment products saw a net outflow of $50 million, marking the first week to post a net outflow since October 2020.

The institutional pivot towards Ether and altcoins reflects recent trends in the broader crypto asset ecosystem, with Bitcoin market dominance sinking to a three-year low of roughly 40% as of May 17.