Institutional demand for Bitcoin and Ethereum causes Grayscale AUM to nearly triple, reduces exposure to XRP

Grayscale Investments, a New York-based digital currency asset management firm, released its investment report for Q2 2019.

The firm's Grayscale Bitcoin Trust product recorded a quarterly return of 147.6 percent.

The Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund, which holds large cap digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ether, generated a return of 178.8 percent during Q2 2019.

The firm's report further noted that over 70 percent of Q2 2019 inflows were associated with contributions of crypto assets into the Grayscale line of products in-kind for shares in the company's trusts.

The company's inflows into Grayscale Ethereum Trust during Q2 2019 were approximately $14 million and Ethereum Classic Trust inflows for the same time period were of around $5.5 million.

During the first half of 2019, total investments made into all Grayscale products reached $127.4 million with average weekly investments of $4.9 million.

Notably, Grayscale's report stated that the majority, or 80 percent, of all investments came from institutional investors.

Digital large cap fund reduces exposure to XRP. In April 2019, Grayscale reduced its Digital Large Cap Fund's exposure to XRP from 14.7 percent to 11.9 percent while increasing the fund's Litecoin exposure from 1.8 to 3.3 percent.

Most of the Digital Large Cap Fund is invested in BTC. According to Grayscale's management, the percent changes in exposure were made based on the firm's "Passive, rules-based" investment strategy.

In December 2018, a report from Longhash revealed Grayscale was the largest institutional holder of Bitcoin, holding at least 203,000 BTC valued at nearly $2 billion at current market prices.