Crypto AUM Reaches Record High in 2021, Bitcoin Dominates

2021 witnessed sharp growth in global crypto assets under management (AUM). Despite the reason that Bitcoin investment products dominated the yearly inflows, other digital assets like Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Binance Coin (BNB) and Polkadot (DOT) have gained popularity in the last 12 months.

Overall, crypto investment products attracted a total of $9.3 billion in 2021, which is 36% higher compared to 2020. The latest weekly digital asset fund flows report by CoinShares shows that crypto AUM closed last year at a level of $62.5 billion.

“Digital asset investment products saw inflows totaling US$9.3bn in 2021, a 36%increase from 2020. While the increase from 2019 to 2020 was significantly higher at 806%, we believe this represents a maturing industry, with total crypto assets under management (AuM) ending the year at US$62.5bn in 2021 versus just US$2.8bn at the end of 2019,” the report noted.

Bitcoin dominated the yearly inflows in 2021. The crypto asset accounted for more than 60% of the total inflows last year. BTC investment products attracted nearly $6.3 billion worth of inflows in the last 12 months, compared to $5.4 billion in 2020.

Outflows

While the yearly inflows topped expectations, the crypto investment products saw substantial outflows towards the end of 2021. In mid-December, digital asset products saw record outflows amid a substantial dip in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

“The final week of 2021 saw third-week outflows totaling US$32m, with the trend suggesting diminishing outflows following the record weekly outflows mid-December. Total outflows for the 3 weeks now total US$260m, 0.4% of AuM. Bitcoin saw total 2021 inflows of US$6.3bn versus US$5.4bn, a year-on-year increase of only 16%, the lowest growth in inflows relative to other digital asset investment products,” CoinShares added.

ETH saw outflows worth $161 million in the last 4 weeks.