Grayscale’s institutional investors are increasingly looking to gain exposure to the altcoin market.
Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, the company’s director of sales and business development, tells BlockTV that Grayscale’s third-quarter numbers demonstrate a growing interest in the firm’s altcoin trusts, which include Ethereum, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Stellar Lumens, Ethereum Classic and Horizen Trust.
“I think it’s important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and the broader trend. The fact that we have, over time, been moving away from Bitcoin maximalism, where Bitcoin represents a safety asset in the space… shows that investors are more comfortable diversifying beyond just Bitcoin and [that’s] really positive.
In Q3 we had about a third of our flows go into products that were not Bitcoin, whereas looking back to Q2 that number was about 25%, and in Q1 of 2019 it was just 1%.
So I think as we see a more balanced demand picture, it’s indicative of a longer-term trend that is positive around the space and encouraging with respect to traditional investors continuing to embrace this new asset class.”
Total investment into Grayscale’s products totaled nearly $254.9 million in Q3.
Of that total, 84% came from institutional investors, a large majority of which are hedge funds.
Though altcoins are seeing more investment, the company’s Bitcoin trust exploded.
Grayscale reports $171.7 million in Bitcoin inflows in Q3 – the largest quarterly investment in the product’s history.