Institutional Investors trading more altcoins than bitcoin for first time

Ex Goldman Sachs investment banker, Hong Fang, is now CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin, and she says that institutional investors have started to buy more altcoins than bitcoin for the very first time. 

In the cryptocurrency market, certain of the more fundamentally sound altcoins are generally trending up against Bitcoin. Bitcoin dominance made a lower low on the 20 October, and although there is currently a small rally, the trend for bitcoin against altcoins has generally been downwards, and dominance presently sits at around 44%. 

This trend isn’t just caused by retail traders. Institutions that have moved into the crypto market are starting to see the tremendous upside potential of altcoins, and it looks like some investment is starting to leave bitcoin and enter the altcoins. 

Hong Fang was interviewed on Business Insider earlier today on the subject, and she remarked how retail investors had led the trend this time: 

"In traditional financial markets, you pretty much see institutions leading the trends, retail customers tend to follow suit. In crypto, it always has seemed to be the other way around," 

Fang said that up until this year it had always been bitcoin and stablecoins where the institutions had focused their investments. However, altcoins have made up 53% of the institutional investment on the Okcoin platform since September of last year. 

This trend appears to be in line with the Genesis Global Trading's Q3 Market Observations report, which highlights the institutional interest in decentralised finance, and also top altcoins such as Solana, Avalanche, Terra, and Fantom. 

The Okcoin exchange platform is seeing institutions letting their hair down more over the past year, and where historically they had preferred to invest in far more established and safe plays, now they are starting to back younger and riskier crypto projects. 

"Institutions are watching the landscape very closely. Some of them are approaching it from a yield perspective, some of them are approaching it from a trading perspective, many of them are probably doing a combination of both," Fang said. "But they are picking up signals from the retail market." 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.