Institutions favor Altcoins over Bitcoin
The crypto market has been in its bearish phase for more than nine months now. To make this phase easier for investors, institutions have offered crypto products to meet their specific needs. A couple of months back, for example, 21Shares had rolled out a crypto winter package to help market participants tread through this difficult update.
Read More: Bitcoin Investors Can Tread Through Winter By Bankrolling This ‘Suite’
Now, crypto investment product firm 21.co — the parent of 21Shares — said Tuesday it had raised $25 million in a funding round. Notably, the same was led by Marshall Wace who valued the company at $2 billion. Other participants in the funding round include Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners.
21.co said in a statement,
“With this round of funding, 21.co will continue to drive rapid, targeted growth through premium products, key market expansions and strategic talent acquisitions.”
The statement further revealed that the post-money valuation makes 21.co “Switzerland’s largest crypto-unicorn”.
The previously highlighted funding round was the company’s first in two years. It said it ended 2021 “with a nine-figure revenue run rate and has seen sustained inflows, even during bear markets.” Furthermore, in the year period since last September, it recorded $650 million in net new assets, with assets under management peaking in November 2021 at $3 billion.
How has it been with 21Shares?
Over the past week, top institutions such as ProShares and 3iQ had noted outflows of digital asset funds [$0.5 million, $9.4 million respectively]. However, 21Shares recorded positive flows worth almost $1.5 million during the same period.
In fact, even on the YTD window, 21Shares’ numbers were quite higher compared to the likes of Purpose, 3iQ and CI Investments.
Will Alts now become the institutions’ preferred choice?
The same CoinShares report further revealed that digital asset investment products saw small inflows last week, totaling $9.2 million.
Institutions have been biased against altcoins lately. As illustrated below, inflows were seen in Solana [$0.5 million]Cardano [$0.1 million]and XRP [$0.2 million]. Bitcoin and Ethereum, on the other hand, had recorded negative flows of $11.1 million and $2.1 million respectively.
