Investors are looking to alternative assets to hedge against weakening currencies.
Investors threw a record amount of cash at Bitcoin and other crypto investment products, which racked up $5.95 billion last week as concerns around currency debasement worldwide sent alternative assets to record highs.
Data from a Monday report from digital asset manager CoinShares revealed that investors put the most amount of money ever into Bitcoin investment products during a single week — $3.55 billion in total.
CoinShares tracks funds around the world, but data from Farside Investors shows that most of that cash — over $3.2 billion of it — hit the U.S. Bitcoin ETFs.
Bitcoin on Sunday broke a new record of $125,506, according to CoinGecko data, and has continued to trade around that level. The biggest and oldest cryptocurrency’s price recently stood at $125,323, a 10% jump over the past week.
“We believe this was due to a delayed response to the FOMC interest rate cut, compounded by very weak employment data, as indicated by Wednesday’s ADP Payroll release, and concerns over US government stability following the shutdown,” CoinShares said, citing reasons for the inflows.
Overall, the asset manager noted that investors worldwide put a record $5.95 billion into crypto funds. Investment vehicles giving exposure to altcoins like Solana and XRP also received record amounts of money, with such funds taking in $706.5 million and XRP $219.4 million, respectively.
Ethereum ETFs pulled in $1.48 billion last week. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum funds had seen outflows the week prior, making last week a substantial rebound for funds tied to the two largest crypto assets.
Most cryptocurrencies were up Monday morning New York time, but only Bitcoin and BNB had recently set record highs. BNB has been rallying the past few weeks and was the highest gainer among the top 10 digital assets over the last 24 hours; the coin was recently priced at $1,219.
Experts told Decrypt that they expected other altcoins to still rally — albeit later.
The ongoing U.S. government shutdown and an expected October interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve has led the price of Bitcoin, gold, and other cryptocurrencies and precious metals to rally.
Dubbed a “debasement trade,” investors are trying to hedge against weakening currencies and geopolitical headwinds.
The dollar index, which measures the value of the greenback against major world currencies, suffered its worst first half of the year since the early 1970s as President Donald Trump went full steam ahead with his trade war.
