Institutional exposure to altcoin products retests all-time high

Inflows to Solana-based investment products saw a whopping 388% increase last week, with institutional investors gaining exposure to $13.2 million worth of SOL products.

Institutional demand for altcoin exposure has surged to record levels, with the altcoin market share now representing a record 35% of capital locked in crypto investment products.

According to the Sept. 7 issue of CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly, nearly 40% of the past week's inflows to digital asset investment products were allocated to instruments tracking altcoins.

While $97.8 million was invested into crypto investment products combined between Aug. 30 and Sept. 3 to mark the sector’s third consecutive week of inflows, $38.9 million was invested into altcoin products.

This past week also saw a sizeable increase in institutional crypto investments, with the previous two weeks recording inflows of $24 million and $21 million, respectively.

Roughly 35% of the capital invested in institutional crypto investment products is currently locked in instruments tracking assets other than Bitcoin — comprising a retest of the metric’s all-time high from May.

Ethereum (ETH) tracking products led the altcoin pack for the second week in a row, recording inflows of $14.4 million, a 16.2% decrease from the previous week’s $17.2 million.

There was a whopping 388% spike in weekly inflows for Solana (SOL)-based products, with SOL products absorbing $13.2 million. This coincided with the price of SOL gaining 37% over the same period.

CoinShares highlighted that inflows to Solana products doubled year-to-date (YTD) this past week, with $25 million having been invested into SOL instruments during the entirety of 2021 so far. SOL-based products now represent $44 million in total assets under management (AUM).

Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT)-based funds also saw notable inflows of $6.5 million and $2.7 million, respectively.

Bitcoin (BTC) investment products bucked an eight-week trend of outflows — the longest streak on record for any digital asset product — after enjoying inflows of $58.9 million for the week. Despite the bullish shift in momentum, BTC investment products have posted outflows for 14 of the past 17 weeks.

Related: The total market cap of public crypto stocks has quadrupled since January

According to CoinShares estimates, institutional asset managers currently represent a total AUM of $62.5 billion combined — nearing the record high of $66 billion posted during mid-May.

Top institutional asset manager Grayscale continues to dominate the competition, representing 73% of the sector's combined AUM with $46.2 billion.