In a record first quarter, Grayscale reports many institutional investors took advantage of market turbulence to increase their exposure to cryptocurrencies.

The crypto-focused investment firm raised a total of $503.7 million in Q1 2020, nearly double the previous quarterly high of $254.8 million reached in Q3 2019. While bitcoin-weighted trusts continue to be the company's most popular product, the report noted that ether trusts also received record inflows in the same quarter as investors added multiple Grayscale products to their portfolios.

The firm, a unit of New York-based Digital Currency Group, CoinDesk's parent company, raised about $600 million across the whole of 2019. With Thursday's report showing the company raising more than $500 million in Q1, it's likely 2020 inflows will exceed the year before.

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Grayscale also reported inflows surpassed $1 billion over a 12-month period, the company's first billion-dollar year. This takes the total value of Grayscale's assets under management (AUM) to $2.2 billion.

The lion's share of demand came from institutional investors, who made up 88 percent of total investments in the quarter. Digging deeper, Grayscale said the overwhelming majority of these institutional clients were hedge funds.

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Grayscale said clients had seized the opportunity of increased volatility over the quarter to increase their exposure to its products, particularly when crypto prices have sharply declined. The evidence suggests that even in a risk-off climate, investors "are increasing their digital asset exposure at current levels," the report reads.