Inflows to bitcoin ETFs slow after record-breaking surge driven by first futures ETFs, Coinshares says

• Inflows into bitcoin ETFs were $53 million last week, slowing from a record haul in the previous week, said CoinShares.
• A record $1.2 billion was pushed into bitcoin-futures ETFs with the launch of such vehicles from ProShares and Valkyrie.

Institutional investors pushed more than $50 million into $4 exchange-traded funds last week, a slowdown from the more than $1 billion that was poured into such vehicles upon their arrival into the marketplace.

The $4 followed by the $4 that launched toward the end of October marked total inflows of $1.24 billion, but that record-breaking haul "was not repeated" last week with only $53 million going into bitcoin ETFs, said digital asset management firm CoinShares in an update published Monday.

CoinShares said other European and Canadian-based bitcoin exchange-traded products logged inflows last week. Since the first two US-based bitcoin-futures ETFs were introduced, trading in VanEck's Bitcoin Strategy ETF has started.

The bitcoin-futures ETFs notch a notable development for the cryptocurrency market whose valuation this year has swelled to more than $2.5 trillion. The bitcoin-futures ETFs invest in contracts used to speculate on future prices for bitcoin and don't require buyers to hold an account at a cryptocurrency exchange or to have a crypto wallet.

While there was a slowdown in the weekly inflows into those products, bitcoin products raked in the majority of inflows into cryptocurrency vehicles last week, at $269 million. Those investments drove bitcoin inflows in October to $2 billion.

At the same time, inflows into digital asset products were $288 million last week. The amount led total inflows so far this year to a record $8.7 billion, which is 30% higher than the total for 2020, said CoinShares.

Bitcoin during Tuesday's session rose more than 4% to trade at $63,485. It logged a fresh record high above $67,000 two weeks ago.