Grayscale noticed its property beneath administration skyrocket as Wall Road used it as a proxy to put money into bitcoin.

The New York-based funding agency kicked off final yr with $2 billion in property and ended with greater than $20.2 billion. That 900% improve was pushed by demand from institutional buyers resembling hedge funds, endowments and pension funds, the corporate mentioned in a quarterly report Thursday.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust turned a preferred, publicly traded manner for buyers to get publicity to cryptocurrency with out proudly owning the cash themselves. The funding product ballooned from $1.eight billion to $17.5 billion in property yr over yr.

“We noticed a significant acceleration of institutional participation,” Michael Sonnenshein, who just lately took over as CEO of Grayscale Investments, instructed CNBC in a telephone interview. “There isn’t any longer skilled danger of investing within the digital forex asset class — there’s most likely extra profession danger in not paying…