A new CoinShares report has revealed that crypto fund investments in 2022 were at their lowest point since 2018. In 2022, investors put in a total of $433 million into digital assets, a marked 95% drop from the $9.1 billion invested in 2021, a 93% fall from $6.6 billion injected in 2020.
This is particularly significant given the overall state of the crypto market last year. The global crypto market cap started the year at $2.3 trillion and ended it at $829 million, a loss of roughly 64% of its value.
Source: Coinmarketcap
It’s important to note that the CoinShares report tracks exchange-traded product activity and has been a credible source for institutional investors looking to give crypto a shot. Exchange-traded products include Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust and 21Shares’ Digital Asset ETPs, which allow investors to get involved in the crypto market without having to hold the assets directly.
As such, “not all of these products are designed for investors with an optimistic outlook on crypto,” wrote James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares. Therefore, while exchange-traded products represented 1.1% of total Bitcoin inflows, the amount of investors who bet against (shorted) digital assets amounted to $108 million. Inflows in short-investments reached their peak during the FTX collapse in November last year .
CoinShares also shared that, “assets under management in exchange-traded crypto funds decreased from $22.2 billion to only $21.8 billion,” in a recent update.
