Institutional investors have been investing in Bitcoin (BTC) for a long time now. This is according to Grayscale senior executive Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary that talked a few days ago with The Block.

Her comments come after the official launch of the Bakkt bitcoin futures contracts a few weeks ago.

Institutional Investors Are Already Here

During this interview, the director of sales and business development for Grayscale, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary explained that business had been consistent while growing throughout the year.

She mentioned that they registered $85 million from investors during the second quarter of this year. This is two times more than the investments registered during the first quarter of 2019. At the same time, 80% of these funds came from institutional investors.

About it, she commented:

“There’s this rhetoric in the media about when are institutional investors going to get involved, when are they going to start investing, and it’s so funny because it’s ironic. We see institutional investors invest with us all the time and that’s been the case for a long time now.”

She went on saying that investors are getting more comfortable with this asset class and that it is good to see diversification in investors’ portfolios.

The comments she made come after the official launch of Bakkt’s services. The company, owned by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), is currently offering Bitcoin futures trading contacts backed by physical Bitcoin.

Although enthusiasts expected this to be very bullish for the most popular cryptocurrency, the official launch was rather disappointing with very low volume and not enough interest from companies and institutions.

After the official launch, Bitcoin fell from $10,500 to under $8,000. At the moment, the leading cryptocurrency is being traded close to $8,205.

At the moment, Grayscale is offering trusts for different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC).

These are the four largest cryptocurrencies in the market. However, the XRP digital asset was not included by Grayscale. XRP is the third-largest crypto with a market capitalization of $12.11 billion.

In the future, a Bitcoin ETF could eventually be approved. If that happens, many investors that do not trust crypto exchanges would be able to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency market without having to be worried about the investment tools they use.

Bitwise Asset Management is waiting for approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).