Institutional investors loaded up on a record $51.4 million worth of investment products offering exposure to shorting the price of Bitcoin 

BTC

$17,195

 last week.

According to data from the latest edition of CoinShares’ weekly “Digital Asset Fund Flows” report, there was $64 million worth of inflows for digital asset products between June 27 and July 1, with short BTC funds representing 80% of that figure.

United States-based investors accounted for the lion’s share of inflows at $46.2 million, with short-BTC investment products in solid demand after ProShares launched the first-ever U.S.-based short Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) on June 22. The ETF trades under the ticker BITI and offers shorting exposure via futures contracts:

“This highlights investors are adding to long positions at current prices, with the inflows into short-Bitcoin possibly due to first-time accessibility in the US rather than renewed negative sentiment.”

CoinShares also noted that institutional investors from Brazil, Canada, Germany and Switzerland snapped up a combined $20 million worth of crypto investment products. Sweden partially offset that figure with $1.8 million worth of outflows.

Short BTC products have now seen year-to-date inflows totaling $77.2 million, with that figure placing it behind only multi-asset products and Solana 

SOL

$16

 products, which have posted $213.5 million and $110.3 worth of inflows so far in 2022.

Looking at the inflows for other digital asset products, those offering exposure to Ether 

ETH

$1,310

 generated $4.9 million, marking the second consecutive week of inflows after a lengthy 11-week trend of shedding. However, year-to-date ETH funds are still down with $450.9 million worth of outflows.

The remainder of the inflows was spread across multi-asset funds at $4.4 million, while SOL, Polkadot 

DOT

$4.90

, Cardano 

ADA

$0.325

 and BTC products also posted minor inflows of $1 million, $700,000, $600,000, and $600,000, respectively.

Related: CoinShares acquires French crypto asset manager Napoleon AM

The surge in short BTC fund inflows last week also follows from the prior week when there was $423 million worth of outflows for digital asset products, the highest amount ever on CoinShares’ records. Notably, short BTC funds escaped the carnage that week, posting $15.3 million worth of inflows, while BTC products saw significant outflows of $453 million.