Crypto Market Witnessed A Record $9.3 Billion Inflow of Institutional Money in 2021

The cryptocurrency market witnessed a mega bull run during the last year of 2021. On Tuesday, January 4, institutional crypto investing platform CoinShares shared annual stats regarding institutional inflows in the crypto space last year.

As per the report, the institutional yearly inflows in crypto stood at a staggering $9.3 billion marking a near 36% jump against $6.8 billion in 2020. Furthermore, the total number of crypto assets and investment products has also expanded from 9 to 15 in 2021.

Additionally, 37 new investment products were launched last year against 24 products in 2020. Thus, as of now, there are 132 institutional crypto products suggesting strong institutional demand in the crypto space. In its report, CoinShares mentioned:

“While the increase from 2019 to 2020 was significantly higher at 806%, we believe this represents a maturing industry, with total assets under management (AUM) ending the year at $62.5 billion in 2021 versus just $2.8 billion at the end of 2019″.

Bitcoin still continues to dominate net inflows in the market against other altcoins. As per the CoinShares report, Bitcoin registered net inflows of $6.3 billion in 2021 marking a 16% increase over the previous year. On the other hand, Ethereum registered net inflows of $1.3 billion in 2021. Other multiasset funds with a basket of cryptocurrencies witnessed net inflows of $775 million.

The world’s largest digital asset manager – Grayscale – continued to maintain its market dominance with $43.5 billion in AUM. This was followed by CoinShares at $4.75 billion and 3iQ with an AUM of $2.52 billion.

Institutional Crypto Buying to Continue in 2022 Amid Inflation Fears

During his recent interview with Forbes, FTX exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried said that he expects institutional crypto buying to continue strongly in 2022. This will be predominantly driven by greater regulatory clarity as well as the rising inflation fears, said SBF. In his interview, the FTX founder noted:

The things that make me optimistic basically are more regulatory clarity in the US and globally which I think could help a ton on institutional adoption. A lot of it depends on exactly what happens on the regulatory front as well.

He further added: “Basically every large financial institution I’ve talked to, every large bank, every large investment bank, pension funds, they’re all eyeing this sector.”