TronWeekly

Crypto World News

You are here: Home / Archives for Grayscale

Grayscale

Inverse Bitcoin ETF beneficial for crypto: Grayscale CEO

by

Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein recently asserted on Twitter that the introduction of the first short Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States could be encouraging for the cryptocurrency sector.

Screenshot 49

He thinks that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of new BTC-related goods shows that the powerful regulator is gradually growing more at ease with the biggest cryptocurrency.

According to U.Today, on Tuesday, trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) began for the ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategy (BITI), which provides exposure to the inverse performance of the biggest cryptocurrency.

The SEC’s approval of ProShares’ Bitcoin futures ETF in October was seen as a turning point for the cryptocurrency market and rekindled the second stage of the 2021 bull run.

But the authority has so far turned down every application to allow a spot-based Bitcoin ETF. Currently, Grayscale is putting up a valiant campaign to persuade the SEC to turn its flagship trust into an exchange-traded fund. Sonnenshein has nevertheless emphasized that he is not identifying the recent correction’s bottom.

BTC’s price dropped to $17,500 on Saturday, but it was able to launch a small comeback after that. The top cryptocurrency experienced a rise on Tuesday, reaching a high of $21,708.

Bitcoin to Test $17,000 Again?

Former NYSE Group President Tom Farley recently claimed that the price of Bitcoin may end up retesting the $17,000 level during an appearance on CNBC.

Yet he considers the current price decline to be a “very wonderful” purchasing opportunity, suggesting that the cryptocurrency has at least temporarily struck a bottom. Farley is of the opinion that the market has already capitulated.

After a protracted run of losses, the largest cryptocurrency in the world was able to retake the $21,000 mark earlier today, marking a tiny success for bulls.

Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of BitMEX, forewarned on Monday that there would be additional forced selling as a result of market uncertainty. In the past, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, warned that the tiny comeback would just be a dead-cat bounce.

Chris Burniske, a cryptocurrency analyst, recently tweeted that he would not be surprised if BTC fell under the $10,000 mark. There is more possibility for a downturn because miners have not yet given in. Burniske also thinks that the unfavorable macro environment will make it difficult for Bitcoin to recover.

Grayscale doubles down on its efforts for a Spot Bitcoin ETF

by

Asset management firm Grayscale has renewed efforts to gain permission from the US securities watchdog in converting the world’s largest crypto investment vehicle into an exchange-traded fund.

As per a letter sent to the regulator, the asset manager is bolstering its application with the Securities and Exchange Commission to convert its $40 billion Bitcoin Trust into a spot Bitcoin ETF.

The latest move from Grayscale comes as the SEC is contemplating whether to give the green signal for US exchange-traded funds to hold bitcoin, rather than derivatives linked to the cryptocurrency, for the first time.

The investment firm is currently awaiting to hear back from the SEC in early July on a decision that would change its Bitcoin Trust into an ETF. If they are rejected, Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein has hinted that it is willing to flip the script and take SEC to court.

Image

While there is no doubt that Grayscale’s CEO has been one of the vocal SEC critics, he is not alone. In an interview, this month, Bitwise Asset Management’s Matt Hougan took note of the fallacy and said,

“The SEC is objecting on the grounds of manipulation concerns, but its specific request was to demonstrate that regulated CME markets are of significant size. Bitcoin is now an institutional market. It’s a market with institutional service providers, institutional investors, and a large and robust regulated futures market.”

Grayscale’s gambit is monumental for the crypto industry

Several other crypto firms have already been reprimanded in their attempts to open similar funds and Grayscale’s gambit represents one of the crypto industry’s last hopes of launching such a product in the near future.

But that has hardly acted as a deterrence. As ETF Trends CEO Tom Lydon pointed out that a growing number of financial advisors are interested in investing in a bitcoin ETF.

A 2022 Bitwise/ETF Trends Survey revealed that 82% of advisors prefer a spot bitcoin ETF over a futures-based alternative. The demand has also increased for bitcoin products that investors can purchase on traditional brokerage platforms, Lydon said.

Right now, there are not many choices, so it’s not going backward, he added. Crypto experts are still hopeful a spot bitcoin ETF could make its entry as early as this year.

Dogecoin fails to impress grayscale’s Barry Silbert; DOGE creator hits back

by

What an impressive run it has been for the Shiba-Inu featured meme token- Dogecoin [DOGE]. A lot of its exposure has to do with the “Musk effect“. The Tesla Chief’s guest-hosting appearance on this week’s Saturday Night Live had further caused a stir in the cryptocurrency market.

The recent exchange listings on eToro as well as Gemini have backed the dog-themed cryptocurrency to sustain its rally and helped it to surpass XRP as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. But unlike previous instances, when Elon Musk managed to sway the general investor crowd into FOMOing DOGE, this time it has been the opposite.

The memecoin took a plunge by more than 30%, as the exec made an appearance in the late-night comedy show, which drove its price to $0.498, at the time of writing. It appears plugging Dogecoin on SNL did not work out. So much for mainstream exposure.

Dogecoin [DOGE] Price Chart:

DOGE
Inverse Bitcoin ETF beneficial for crypto: Grayscale CEO 4

Musk toying with the cryptocurrency market has left many well-known players in the industry fuming. The US regulators have applied more cautiousness but lacked significantly when it came to providing regulatory clarity because of its lack of political decisiveness surrounding this space.

Hence, many crypto advocates have not been shy in calling the tech giant for Dogecoin’s recent boom and a potential subsequent bust that could rock the market and not in a good way.

The latest one to chime in was Barry Silbert, who happens to be the Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group [DCG], owner of Grayscale Investments. He urged cryptocurrency investors to convert their Dogecoin to Bitcoin in a recent tweet.

“Okay $DOGE peeps, it’s been fun. Welcome to crypto! But the time has come for you to convert your DOGE to BTC.”

Silbert also revealed that his firm has gone short on DOGE via FTX cryptocurrency platform. The exec further pledged to donate $1 million to a charitable cause selected by the Dogecoin community if DOGE hits $1 by the end of this month.

But the co-creator of Dogecoin, Billy Markus was quick to point out Silbert’s association with a prominent crypto news portal and stated,

Grayscale Total Assets Under Management Reaches $50 Billion

by

Investment giant, Grayscale has reached a new milestone of $50.6 billion in cryptocurrency assets under management [AUM] on the 14th of April. The AUM figure has been quite impressive, increasing by an incredible 2,400% from a mere $2 billion at the beginning of 2020.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust [GBTC] continued to dominate the charts and accounted for a whopping $41.44 billion, while the Ethereum Trust [ETHE] trailed behind with $7.42 billion followed by the remaining trusts, including Litecoin trust [LTCN], Ethereum Classic Trust [ETCG], and Bitcoin Cash [BCHG], with $405.5 million, $267.4 million and $234.3 million respectively.

Grayscale has witnessed a rise in its total AUM figure by over $3 billion right after its plan to further diversify its crypto-trust offerings that involved the addition of five new tokens for their eligible accredited investors.

Grayscale Bitcoin Fund [GBTC] Vs GLD fund 

With the latest surge, the asset manager is inching closer to the largest Commodities ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD which has $57.70 billion in assets. And there are certain industry experts that speculated this could happen soon. Senior Commodity Strategist, Mike McGlone, for one, believes that the firm’s Bitcoin Trust would eventually overtake the most popular gold-pegged ETF SPDR Gold Trust [GLD] in the coming days. His tweet read,

“Bitcoin Trust on Track to Surpass World’s Largest Commodity ETF – In a world going digital, we believe gold symbolizes the diminishing potential for sustained commodity-price advances, notably vs. Bitcoin. The crypto is a prime example of how advancing innovation suppresses.”

tweet
Inverse Bitcoin ETF beneficial for crypto: Grayscale CEO 6

Grayscale had announced its plans of converting its main product GBTC into an ETF. Hence, if approved, this would make the platform accessible to an even wider section of investors at a much lower cost. While the SEC is yet to give a green light to such an investment offering, but if approved Grayscale would easily become the second-largest commodity ETF just behind the SPDR Gold Shares.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has surfaced as the growing choice of market participants around the world. This, in turn, prompted North American regulators to approve a few Bitcoin ETFs. As opposed to the Bitcoin’s bull season, Gold, on the other hand, has continued its downtrend starting after the first quarter of 2020.

Grayscale Reopens Ethereum Trust As Ether Becomes Darling Among Institutions

by

Ethereum has skyrocketed to its ATH this bull season before noting a minor retracement to $1,347 at press time. In the latest development for the world’s largest altcoin, Grayscale has reopened its Ethereum Trust to the investors.

This is not the first time that Grayscale has unveiled an opportunity for its Trust to open up prospects to secure more capital for greater adoption. The Trust’s private placement is offered throughout the year but on a periodic basis and according to the latest announcement, it is now available to investors for a daily subscription.

With this development, one of the world’s largest digital asset managers has yet again enabled accredited investors to allocate funds to the firm’s product.

It is important to note that “private placement” works similar to an alternative to IPOs and essentially implies a sale of an asset to a pre-selected number of investors and institutions instead of an open market.

Besides, Ethereum Trust has been the company’s second most-successful product in the 4th quarter of 2020. In its report, Grayscale had previously mentioned that the Trust trailed just behind BTC Trust, expectedly so, with a whopping $342 million.

Ethereum Gaining Popularity Among Investment Vehicles

Seems like February is the month for Ether-focused funds. This can be attributed to the undeniable growing interest of institutional investors in Ethereum. Just recently, the world’s largest derivatives platform, CME Group had announced that it would be launching an Ether-based futures contract in the first quarter of 2021.

Moreover, Mike Novogratz’s Digital Galaxy is all set to roll-out a suite of Ethereum-focused funds to provide institutional-quality exposure to ETH. According to the official document, the fund will invest directly in ETH and will be valued based on the Bloomberg Galaxy Ethereum Index.

The intersection of Ethereum and institutional investors is noteworthy as all the aforementioned products affirm ETH to be a growing digital asset and aim to offer investors exposure to the smart contracts and decentralized application [DApp] that have created waves over the past several years.

Bitcoin Garners Increased Pension Interest Amid Bull Run

by

Bitcoin is now valued at $40K while its market cap resides at $751.18 billion. While Bitcoin is increasing without a stop, institutional investors seem to be pouring in their money into the industry. While other coins are catching up, Bitcoin made it clear that it was untouchable as the largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price movement has reportedly lured in investors eyeing pension funds as well as endowments. Grayscale’s latest CEO shed light on the same in a recent chat with Bloomberg.

Bitcoin Investment Prevails In Several Forms

Grayscale recently revealed that it would stop trading of XRP until the platform got a better picture of the SEC lawsuit against Ripple. Albeit this blip, other assets have been garnering immense traction on the crypto platform. Grayscale’s newest CEO, Michael Sonnenshein spoke to Bloomberg about the latest institutional interest in Bitcoin. He said,

“We’ve started to see participation not just from the hedge fund segment, which we’ve long seen participation from, but now it’s recently from other institutions, pensions and endowments. The sizes of allocations they are making are growing rapidly as well.”

Barry Silbert recently stepped down from his post as the CEO of Grayscale Investments and Michael Sonnenshein took over as the CEO. Sonnenshein had taken over an array of roles in the past seven years at Grayscale itself. Silbert revealed that he wanted to concentrate on his other company, the Digital Currency Group.

The latest bull run brought in major inflows into the Bitcoin Trust. While 2020 was rather disastrous, Grayscale seemed to have had quite a beneficial year. Last year, Grayscale managed around $2 billion in assets, however, Sonnenshein revealed that the crypto platform currently manages over $25 billion in assets.

Elaborating on the limited supply of the king coin, Sonnenshein added,

“So there is definitely an argument to be made about Grayscale and really any other vehicle that may be removing Bitcoin from circulation and putting it into a financial product inherently increasing the scarcity of an already scarce asset. This is a verifiable scarce asset and so when there are mechanisms that are removing them from circulation, that’s inherently making it an even scarcer asset.”

Furthermore, he also pointed out that the crypto rally has surged the demand for Grayscale and the platform reportedly intends to onboard several other employees as it currently harbors only 24 individuals. Sonnenshein stated that the platform would direct its focus on advertising as well as rolling out new products.

Grayscale Hits $23 Billion in AUM as Bitcoin Blasts Past $35k

by

Bitcoin’s price has soared wild. Owing to the strong bullish momentum, the crypto fund manager Grayscale has surpassed $23 billion in assets under management [AUM] on the 5th of January, up from $22.8 billion on the 1st of January this year. Since the start of 2020, the platform has increased its holdings by ten times.

Bitcoin has been making and breaking records with each passing day. It crossed yet another milestone of $35.1k before retracing to the press time price of $34.82k. This has paved the way for the altcoin market to register tremendous rally breaching levels not seen since the 2017-2018 bull run.

1 1

The growth that the asset manager has noted in the past couple of weeks has been nothing short of phenomenal. Thanks to the growing customer base of institutions, high net individuals as well as retail investors, the AUM figures have skyrocketed in a short period of time. As Grayscale products continued to attract massive capital inflows, Bitcoin was its largest holdings with a staunching $19.47 billion followed by its Ethereum product [ETHE] at $3.09 billion, Grayscale Litecoin Trust [LTCN] with $178 million.

Taking the opportunity, Grayscale has not only accumulated a massive amount of crypto-assets but has also launched substantial marketing campaigns. One of its most popular was the DropGold. More recently, it launched ‘GoGrayscale’ marketing campaigns to increase awareness about digital assets.

Reportedly, shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust [GBTC] soared by nearly 12% on the 5th of January. This was right after JPMorgan issued an extremely bullish forecast for the price of Bitcoin. A popular JP Morgan analyst went on to claim that Bitcoin could potentially rise as high as $146,000

TWJ had earlier revealed how confident the market has been following the stunning rally. Barry Silbert, the Founder, and CEO of Digital Currency Group which owns the digital asset manager had earlier tweeted,

“You all clearly want Grayscale to hit $20 billion in AUM in 2020. I’ll take it”

XRP Makes Way For Litecoin As The Fourth-Largest Asset; Grayscale Kicks Out XRP From Its DLC Fund

by

The crypto-verse has been closely spectating the movement of Bitcoin. XRP seems to be the only asset enduring a loss during the ongoing bull run. The crypto industry is so close to hitting $1 trillion, but it appears like XRP wouldn’t be effectively aiding the process. The SEC lawsuit has almost destroyed the altcoin. Over the past few days, several crypto exchanges went on to delist the asset and the list isn’t getting any shorter. A few other members join the list as the asset slips off as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency.

XRP Loses Spot On Blockchain.com

The SEC’s $1.3 billion lawsuit against Ripple seems to have an array of repercussions as XRP has been losing its stance in the crypto-verse. After Coinbase, Bittrex, OKCoin, and several other lesser-known exchanges suspending trading of the asset, Blockchain.com revealed that it would halt trading of the altcoin from 14 January 2021. However, users of the platform will reportedly be able to send out the altcoin that they already have, but cannot acquire extra XRP.

Grayscale also followed suit and bid adieu to XRP. In a recent tweet, the platform revealed its Quarterly review for the Digital Large Cap [DLC] Fund. Grayscale’s DLC entailed other crypto-assets like Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], Bitcoin Cash [BCH] as well as Litecoin [LTC]. But XRP didn’t seem to make it to the list. The tweet read,

In a recent press release, Grayscale further affirmed that it would “temporarily” suspend trading for the altcoin starting from 15 January post 5 PM [ET]. Elaborating on the platform’s reason for removing the coin, the post read,

“According to the Fund’s documentation, during the Fund’s quarterly review, the Manager may determine to exclude a digital asset from the Fund’s portfolio even if it meets the Fund’s Inclusion Criteria, including, but not limited to, if the Authorized Participant does not have the ability to trade or otherwise support such digital asset.”

Earlier this year, the largest stablecoin, Tether [USDT] flipped XRP as the third-largest crypto asset. Now, Litecoin has overshadowed the asset and took over its place as the fourth largest coin with a market cap of $10.63 billion.

XRP

Grayscale Now Has $19 Billion in Crypto AUM; Figures Triple

by

It is, without a doubt, that Grayscale has effectively cornered the cryptocurrency industry. Bitcoin’s prices have unfolded tremendously over the holiday week, thanks to the growing institutional investor interest as well as the retail FOMO.

Owing to this, the digital asset manager, Grayscale Investments has hit yet another milestone, after it touched $19 billion in assets under management [AUM] on the 28th of December, up from the $16.4 billion announced just last week. With this, the figures have tripled since the start of November.

1 7

Notably, Grayscale’s trust for XRP witnessed a significant decline all the way from $13.7 million AUM a week ago to the current $11.2 million. This can be attributed to the recent SEC-Ripple fiasco which has prompted intense sell-off.

Nevertheless, Grayscale products have attracted massive capital inflows over the course of the year. According to the latest data by the NY-based platform showed that Bitcoin continued to be its largest holdings with a staunching $16.3 billion followed by Grayscale Ethereum Trust [ETHE] at $2.1 billion, Grayscale Litecoin Trust [LTCN] with $151.3 million.

The world’s leading crypto asset management firm had garnered a lot of traction recently due to its DropGold advertising campaign. To top that, the company reported a growing interest in Ethereum earlier this month.

Besides, Ki Young Ju, who happens to be the CEO of CryptoQuant, revealed that out of the total $186 billion Bitcoin realized market cap, 16% is owned by institutional investors. This comes after Grayscale’s third-quarter investment report disclosed that 80% of investments to its products came from institutional investors, which were dominated by hedge.

In addition to the rising Bitcoin price, yet another factor that has made the US-based platform, realy popular among the experienced and the novice traders alike was the weakening dollar which has triggered institutional adoption. Furthermore, it is no news that certain major Wall Street firms have also integrated digital assets in their investment portfolio to hedge against dollar depreciation.

Confident about the massive figures, Barry Silbert, the Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group which owns the digital asset manager, tweeted,

“You all clearly want Grayscale to hit $20 billion in AUM in 2020. I’ll take it”

Ethereum Breaches $735 Triggering Over 90% Addresses In Profit

by

Late Chrismas Gift for Ethereum?

Ethereum had a bullish start for the day as it broke above $700 for the first time since the last week of May 2018. The largest altcoin was seen lacking bullish momentum as its price movement broke away from that of Bitcoin. However, Ethereum soon climbed to $735.93, at the time of writing after multiple pullbacks close to the coveted level.

According to the crypto-analytic platform, Glassnode, the latest surge triggered 90% of all Ethereum addresses [which roughly amassed for 47 million addresses] holding ETH are now in a state of profit. The last time this number was witnessed to be this high was back in January 2018.

The infamous Black Thursday crash is worth noting in this context because Ethereum has come a long way since then. In March of this year, only 3.2% of all ETH addresses were in profit as opposed to 90% following the spectacular price rise right after Christmas.

1 5

Here’s what Messari’s Ryan Watkins has to say about the latest uptrend:

“2021 prediction: In 2021 we begin seeing institutions buy $ETH. Once you accept that Bitcoin may be valuable, it opens your mind to the possibility that other cryptoassets may also be valuable. It’s a much easier jump from $BTC to $ETH from there.”

While Bitcoin continued to be the darling of institutional investors and corporations, Ethereum was not far behind either. Amassing a market cap of $83 billion, Ether’s success story among institutional investors can be attributed to strong fundamentals. Especially, the decentralized finance [DeFi] sector happened to be one of the hottest and the most exciting thing in the cryptocurrency industry this year.

This helped the second-largest network to hold on to the leadership status as the enormous majority of DeFi projects were based on the Ethereum blockchain. In addition, the growing network activity, in turn, led to increased ETH transaction fees and strong demand for the underlying token.

The growing conviction around Ethereum as an asset class was witnessed this year. This was further evidenced by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s [CME] announcement of an upcoming launch of a futures contract on Ether in February 2021. This development was touted as a game-changer for the ETH ecosystem.

To top that, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust [ETHE] registered over $1.7 billion in assets under management [AUM]. It was also found that the shares of ETHE [OTCMKTS: ETHE] had surged by 700% YTD. This has also intensified the bullish outlook as many market participants now believe that once the Bitcoin rally subsides, there will be a capital inflow into altcoins with ETH being the first choice of high-profile investors.