— Grayscale (@GrayscaleInvest) June 5, 2020
Speaking about the interest, Grayscale’s Director of Investor Relations, Ray Sharif-Askary said, hedge funds and other financial institutions had poured $1.7 billion into Grayscale Investment funds.
It’s a staggering rise in AUM for Grayscale, which has jumped from $2.2 billion in March to over $4 billion. Almost double in three months.
And to emphasize the growing interest, across all of Grayscale’s crypto trusts, weekly investment has rocketed from just $3.2 million in 2019 to almost $30 million a week.
What’s Creating The Sudden Interest?
Grayscale’s crypto trust investment has almost doubled in three months, and the investment per week is up almost 1000% in the last twelve months, so what is creating this sudden interest?
According to Sharif-Askary, it’s down macro instability and unprecedented monetary stimulus, which is making institutions look for alternative hedges against expected high inflation further down the line.
‘This has been a record year—a record quarter for us. Candidly, we’ve never seen demand like this before for our products. And many of the buyers have been traditional hedge funds. Out of the 90% or so of clients that come from institutions, 44% are multi-strategy hedge funds, while many others come from long/short hedge funds,’ said the Grayscale executive.
It’s Not Just Bitcoin They’re Snapping Up
Altough the GBTC fund is the biggest by far, there is a lot of interest in the Grayscale’s Ethereum Fund. Since launching its Ethereum Fund, it has grown from an $11.7m investment to $276.5m in little over a year.
And Sharif-Askary added that Grayscale’s clients were looking to diversify more into altcoins. At last count, 38% of their clients hold more than just Bitcoin, up 9% year on year.
Conclusion
It’s surprising to nobody in the Bitcoin and crypto space that there’s institutional demand for Bitcoin, and a few altcoins. Grayscale has grown exponentially in the last few months, and it is obvious the catalyst was COVID-19 and the money printing that has ensued.
Institutional investors are as interested as anyone in investing in something as secure as Bitcoin and something that is uncorrelated with all traditional markets.
We’re seeing unprecedented monetary stimulus, unprecedented unemployment figures, and unprecedented macro events. Unprecedented institutional investment is now taking shape.
Author: Tommy Limpitlaw
A Bitcoiner since 2017 and a Bitcoin Maximalist since 2018, Tommy is our main writer and editor at Bitcoin Maximalist. Other than researching and writing about Bitcoin, Tommy loves spending time with his family and supporting his beloved Leeds United.
