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Institutional crypto products eye record AUM as investors pile into Bitcoin

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Institutional investors are continuing to pile into Bitcoin despite prices pushing up to a five-month high.

According to CoinShares’ Oct. 12 Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, more than $226 million in capital flowed to institutional Bitcoin (BTC) products this past week. Bitcoin products dominated inflows for the third consecutive week, posting a week-over-week increase of 227%.

The heavy inflows coincided with the price of BTC gaining 12.5% for the week, with BTC sitting at around $54,000 on Oct. 8.

CoinShares attributes the positive shift in sentiment towards Bitcoin to recent statements from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler’s suggesting the long-awaited approval of the United States’ first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) may be just around the corner.

The surging activity surrounding Bitcoin has seen the combined assets under management (AUM) of institutional crypto products push up to $66.7 billion last week — with CoinShares estimating the total is just 5% shy of the sector’s record AUM from May.

Products tracking altcoins have posted a mixed performance for the week, with Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) products generating inflows of $12.5 million and $3 million respectively. However, funds offering exposure to Ether (ETH), Polkadot (DOT) and Ripple (XRP) suffered outflows of $13.6 million, $2.1 million and $600,000 each.

Crypto investment products have now posted inflows for eight weeks in a row.

Related: Billionaire Bill Miller advocates for Bitcoin, but doubtful on altcoins

Many onlookers are attributing BTC’s recent bullish momentum to expectations that the SEC will soon approve a futures-based Bitcoin ETF.

While the SEC has previously shot down every application it has received for physically-backed Bitcoin ETFs, the SEC is currently deliberating a four applications for exchange-traded funds based on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) regulated futures contracts.

With CME’s futures markets offering a product that is already insured and overseen by U.S. regulators, pundits such as senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg Eric Balchunas believe that Bitcoin futures ETFs are “likely on schedule” to receive a regulatory green light this month.