By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency investment products and funds saw outflows for a second straight week, with ether posting record outflows as institutional investors took a step back, data from digital asset manager CoinShares showed on Monday.
Total crypto ouflows hit $21 million for the week ending June 11. Since mid-May, total outflows reached $267 million, representing 0.6% of total assets under management (AUM).
Ether, the token used in the Ethereum blockchain, posted its largest outflow last week of $12.7 million, data showed. The token has been one of the strongest performers this year.
But CoinShares said ether inflows last week were mixed, "implying mixed opinions among investors."
Ether was last up 1% on the day at $2,536. Since hitting a record $4,380.64 on May 12, ether has fallen 40%.
The outflows in bitcoin cooled last week to $10 million, significantly lower than the previous record week of $141 million, CoinShares data showed. Trading activity in bitcoin products rose 43% from the previous week.
Bitcoin rose above $40,000 on Monday following tweets from Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) boss Elon Musk, who said Tesla sold the currency but may resume transactions using it. It was last up 1.8% at $39,686.
While bitcoin is currently trading 36% below its 11-year exponential trend, Dan Morehead, co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, said in his Blockchain Letter on Monday that investors should resist the urge to close positions and instead go the other way if they have the emotional and financial resources to do so.
"Bitcoin generally goes way up...Anyone that has held bitcoin for 3.25 years has made money," said Morehead.
Grayscale, the largest digital currency manager, raised its AUM to $33.04 billion last week, from $30.3 billion the previous week.
CoinShares, the second biggest digital asset manager, saw AUM slip to $3.8 billion, from nearly $4 billion the week before.