By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Inflows into cryptocurrency funds and products hit $4.9 billion as of April 16, with the pace of increase slowing a bit in the first two weeks of the month after hitting record levels in the first quarter, data from digital currency manager Coinshares showed on Tuesday.
Inflows in the first two weeks of April hit about $400 million to $4.9 billion, or about 9% higher than an all-time high of $4.5 billion in the first three months of the year.
The pace of inflows had already moderated in the first quarter, after a 240% surge in the fourth.
That said, inflows in the second week of April totaled $233 million, the largest since early March, Coinshares said.
Bitcoin's rise also slowed in the first two weeks of the month, growing just 5.7%, although it hit a record just under $65,000 during that period. After touching that all-time peak last week, bitcoin has plunged nearly 18% in six days. Bitcoin last traded up 0.8% at $56,161.
"There were ... signs of excessive exuberance in the market, and a correction looked imminent," said Pankaj Balani, chief executive officer of Delta Exchange, a crypto derivatives trading platform.
Inflows last week were more spread out to include other digital assets outside of bitcoin and ethereum.
Bitcoin still saw the largest inflows of $108 million, with ethereum snagging $65 million. But investors poured money into other digital tokens, including bitcoin cash, Polkadot, Binance, and Tezos, Coinshares data showed.
Crypto assets under management (AUM) have also surged to a peak of $64.2 billion, the data showed. In the first quarter, the sector's AUM was $59 billion. Last year, assets under management for the sector hit $37.6 billion.
Grayscale is still the largest digital currency manager, with $49.5 billion in assets as of the second week of April, while CoinShares, the second biggest and the largest European digital asset manager, oversees about $5.7 billion in assets.
XRP has been the most popular digital asset in recent weeks with weekly inflows of $33 million, nearly doubling its assets under management to $83 million.