Few can deny the impact that the rising popularity of cryptocurrency has had on both the economy and society as a whole in recent years. Just recently, the overall market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies surpassed that of JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, and there does not seem to be any limit to what this industry can achieve given the proper support and encouragement.
This impact that the cryptocurrency industry has had was only increased when a rising number of institutional investors were brought in following record inflows into the sector. As of the time of this writing, a whopping $4.5 billion had been generated during only the first quarter of 2021. For comparison, the first quarter of 2020 had only seen $3.9 billion be earned, and while this is certainly no small feat, it nevertheless is an 11% decrease from this year’s amount.
Bitcoin and Ethereum lead the charge
As the world’s first and second-largest cryptocurrencies, respectively, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have been leading the charge for the cryptocurrency industry in terms of market capitalization. In terms of the inflows, Bitcoin had managed to lead with inflows that were worth nearly $3.5 billion, with Ethereum coming at second place with a smaller number of investments worth $765 million.
It is worth pointing out that many institutions had pumped their money into Bitcoin via Tesla, which itself had invested a huge amount of $1.5 billion into the digital asset. This had also assisted Bitcoin in reaching its all-time high price of $60,000 in the second week of last month.
With Bitcoin and Ethereum both experiencing unprecedented success as of late, investors are feeling confident in the cryptocurrency industry and feel that the best is yet to come. This had simultaneously also encouraged these same investors to search for viable altcoins that had the potential to break out and reach all-time highs of their own, as had been the case with Binance Coin (BNB) recently.
Grayscale helps crypto assets reach record high
The crypto assets that had been under management also experienced record-breaking milestones of their own, as $59 billion had been generated, which was a noticeable increase from the previous year’s amount of $37.6 billion.
Grayscale’s contribution is largely responsible for this, as it held just over $46 billion in the crypto asset that was under management. Coinshares also contributed with a comparatively smaller yet still significant value of $5.1 billion in cryptocurrency assets.