Ripple-issued token XRP has been the most popular altcoin among institutional investors as the assets under management (AUM) in related financial assets nearly doubled, a report published by asset manager CoinShares earlier this week showed.
“We believe this recent renewed appetite for digital assets is due to a combination of increasing acceptance from institutional investors, fears for inflation, and price momentum,” the report noted.
XRP leads among altcoins
Per the report, around $33 million worth of institutional capital has been allocated in XRP investment products over the past week, pushing the corresponding assets under management (AUM) to $83 million.
This comes on the heels of XRP’s price recovery after it plummeted earlier this year when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Ripple Labs, the company behind the token.
On April 5, XRP was already trading at around $0.72—already higher than its “pre-lawsuit” level—but managed to more than double in price since then. This rapid growth could’ve been one of the reasons for institutional investors’ renewed interest.
Image: TradingView.Institutional crypto AUM keeps growing
In general, inflows of institutional capital in cryptocurrencies totaled $233 million last week, the report noted. At the same time, the increase in prices pushed the total crypto AUM to $64 billion.
04/16/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.
Total AUM: $50.2 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $ZEC $BAT $LINK $MANA $FIL $LPT pic.twitter.com/9OpsJ4kpAd
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) April 16, 2021
Crypto asset management giant Grayscale was responsible for the lion’s share of this figure last week, holding roughly $50 billion in AUM—or 77%—of the whole sector. It was followed by CoinShares ($5.7 billion; 9%), and 3iQ Corp ($1.9 billion; 3%).
Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin saw the largest inflows of $108 million, followed by Ethereum with $65 million. Among altcoins, institutional investors showed interest in Bitcoin Cash ($4 million), Polkadot ($5 million), Binance Coin ($3 million), and Tezos ($7 million).
Apart from large inflows of capital, the institutional trading volume also surged last week, amounting to $4.8 billion. This represented a 59% increase over the week before and resembled the levels of early February, the researchers concluded.
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