Almost $10 billion was poured into crypto funds by institutional investors in 2021 (2024)

There is no doubt that 2021 was a great year for the crypto industry as the space witnessed a level of interest never seen before in its entire history. This could be seen with the level of institutional interest and investment in the space which rose massively within that period.

Crypto institutional investments top $9 billion in 2021

CoinShares, in its annual report, has revealed that institutional investors invested more in the space than in previous times. According to the report, there was a 36% increase in fund inflow to digital assets in the year.

In the report, the digital asset investment and management company wrote that crypto asset funds saw a massive inflow in 2021 hitting $9.3 billion.

It also indicated that the figure is 36% higher than the year before (2020). However, the increased inflow of 2021 was well below the figure of 2019 when it was well over 800%.

Per CoinShares, institutional investment in the space signals the current level of maturity in the space.

“This represents a maturing industry, with total assets under management (AuM) ending the year at US$62.5bn in 2021 versus just US$2.8bn at the end of 2019.”

The report also captures the fact that many other coins have been added to the growing list of investment products. Previously, there were only nine crypto investment products, but that figure grew to 15 in 2021.

Apart from that, there were 37 new investment products in the year while there were only 24 in 2020. Currently, the crypto space has around 132 investment products which is a sign of the growing demand for crypto assets and their products.

Institutional investors flock to Bitcoin

On inflows to specific assets, it was revealed that the two leading digital assets saw the most inflow for the year. The report noted that inflow to Bitcoin hit over $6 billion in 2021 which is a 16% increase from what it had in 2020.

For Ethereum, the amount of inflow for the asset crossed the $1 billion mark rising from $920 million of the previous year although the asset has also recorded over $160 million worth of outflow in the last 4 weeks largely due to the recent negative sentiments in the market.

It is worth adding that out of the numerous institutional investors; Grayscale remains the leader. A recent update shows the firm has about $43.5 million under its management with more than 20 investment products.

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