Grayscale Investments notches 42% growth in Q1 2019

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Things are looking mighty bright for one of the most popular digital asset management firms. Grayscale Investments looks to be on the verge of a banner year, as the company announced that the first quarter of this year was a truly lucrative one.

According to their Digital Asset Investment Report, the product inflows grew by a whopping 42% over the fourth quarter of 2018. The largest investment increase came from its Bitcoin Investment Trust, which secured an average weekly increase in the investment of $3.2 million. That was a significant amount of Grayscale’s overall weekly average of $3.3 million.

The total amount invested in Grayscale Products in the fourth quarter of last year was $30.1 million. That increased to $42.7 million in the first quarter of 2019. Nearly 73% of that total revenue came from institutional investors. In addition, hedge funds saw a dramatic increase as well, going from slightly below $1 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 to around $24 million in the first three months of this year.

The fact that BTC has become the major focus of investment with Grayscale is not a surprise. In the early part of the year, the company recommended to its investors that they drop their gold assets and replace them with cryptocurrency. The company went so far as to even create a website dedicated to persuading investors into dropping gold and instead of turning to bitcoin. They are also running commercials dedicated to this recommendation, which began airing on May 1.

The site, Drop Gold, is dedicated to teaching investors that digital currencies are the wave of the future. “We’re living in a digital world, a new financial era where bitcoin is displacing gold,” explained the site. “While a gold bar weighs around 25.7 pounds, bitcoin is weightless and can be bought, sold, and transferred as easily as a text message.”

For over a year, Grayscale had already been active in creating a number of crypto investment trusts. This included trusts for BCHABC, Ether, Ripple, and Litecoin.