Institutional Investors have a bitcoin fever – The Grayscale cryptocurrency investment fund is no longer stopped in its buying madness. The fund has just added a new (big) ladle of bitcoins for its products aimed at professional investors.
17,100 more bitcoins for Grayscale
The massive buying pace of the Grayscale investment fund continues unabated. According to bybit , a site that aggregates data on crypto derivatives, the firm would have increased its reserve by 17,100 BTC in less than 3 days or nearly $ 183 million at the current price.
In total, Grayscale is said to now own 449,900 bitcoins or roughly $ 4.8 billion in its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) fund.
This represents 2.4% of all bitcoin issued since the network’s inception in 2009 until now.
Now $ 6 billion in crypto under management
Grayscale offers shares in other crypto funds in its possession: Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Horizen (ZEN), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Ripple (XRP) ) and Zcash (ZEC).
In total, all of these funds together represent $ 6 billion in crypto-assets under Grayscale’s management, according to an update dated September 28.
09/28/20 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.
Total AUM: $6.0 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $XRP $ZEC pic.twitter.com/01F2eg71k2
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) September 28, 2020
Note that all Grayscale shares have a premium. Indeed, as these shares allow professional investors to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies without having to manage storage or other technical aspects, they are ready to pay a premium compared to the market price of cryptos.
Thus, the premium for shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin fund is over 7%, that in the Ethereum (ETHE) fund is 22% and, for the Litecoin fund (LTCN), it is even more spectacular: + 610% compared to the value in litecoins backed by the units. No doubt because unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, there are few alternatives in derivatives on the latter.
Institutional investors are increasingly fond of cryptocurrency and Grayscale must buy increasingly large amounts of crypto. Bakkt also is hitting record trading volume on Bitcoin. If we consider the fact that large companies, such as MicroStrategy, are also starting to build up bitcoin reserves, this will inevitably end up having repercussions on prices, even if these purchases are generally made in OTC ( over the counter ).