NEW YORK: Cryptocurrency investment products and funds posted outflows to start the second half of the year, as cautious sentiment persisted in the midst of a summer lull, according to data from digital asset manager CoinShares released on Monday (Jul 12).
Crypto outflows were US$4 million in the week ended Jul 9, with bitcoin products showing the most outflows of nearly US$7 million in what was the quietest trading week since October 2020. The outflows came after a two-week run of inflows, CoinShares said in its report.
Still, bitcoin showed net inflows of US$4.2 billion so far this year.
Blockchain data provider Glassnode said in a report on Monday that there are signs of recovery in bitcoin mining, a sector that has been hit hard recently due to China’s restrictions.
Data showed that hash-rate, a gauge of mining activity, has recovered from the peak-to-trough decline of 55 per cent to just a 39 per cent fall. If this holds, Glassnode said this would suggest that about a hash power equivalent of roughly 29 per cent has come back online.
Despite bitcoin’s struggles this year, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency was up about 14 per cent in price in 2021.
Ether, the token used in the Ethereum blockchain, posted a minor outflow of US$800,000 the last week. So far this year, ether’s net inflows totalled US$961 million.
Multi-asset investment products were the most popular last week, with inflows of US$1.2 million. In 2021, these products showed inflows of US$362 million or 16.5 per cent of total crypto assets under management of US$39.2 billion, which implied that investors are looking to diversify their digital asset holdings.
Grayscale remains the largest crypto asset manager, but has seen its assets under supervision decline further to US$29.3 billion as crypto prices slumped.
CoinShares, the second biggest digital asset manager, saw AUM slip to US$3.3 billion, little changed from the previous week.