Nurphoto / Getty Images
- Ether's market share has risen rapidly and is now worth 26% of crypto investment: CoinShares.
- The London hard fork upgrade has given the token better ESG credentials, CoinShares said.
- Bitcoin experienced its fifth consecutive week of outflows even after it broke above $40,000.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Investors held a higher percentage of ether and ether-linked products at the end of last week than at any time since May, following the successful rollout of the ethereum network's key London hard fork upgrade, according to weekly data from CoinShares.
Ether products account for 26% of all crypto assets under management, according to CoinShares' weekly flows report released on Monday. As of August 6, there were 12,651 ether-related assets under management, following $2.8 million worth of inflows into these assets, breaking two weeks of outflows.
Since the ethereum London hard fork upgrade on August 5, ether has risen by 11 % to around $3,150 at the time of writing, according to data from the Kraken exchange.
A series of upgrades, including the hard fork, will shift the ethereum network from relying on proof of work to proof of stake and energy use will go down considerably as a result, which beefs up ether's environmental credentials. In fact, last week's hard fork was burning coins at a rate of around $8,900 a minute.
"We believe investors are beginning to focus on more environmental social governance friendly coins, and as ethereum is progressing to ETH 2.0, investors can see a path towards a more environmentally friendly digital asset,"James Butterfill, CoinShares investment strategist, said.
Meanwhile, in the week to August 6, bitcoin gained 7% to trade around $45,900. Bitcoin outflows totalled $33 million last week, marking the fifth straight week of declines, the data showed.
"Despite the positive price movements, bitcoin continued to bear the brunt of the outflows," the CoinShares report said.
CoinShares is Europe's biggest crypto asset manager, with around $3.05 billion assets under management in their end of second quarter earnings report.