Grayscale, a digital currency investment firm established in 2013, now holds over 203,000 bitcoin (BTC) – an amount currently worth about $780 million according to CryptoCompare data.
According to LongHash’s research, this makes Grayscale – a subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group – the largest institutional holder of bitcoin, with more than 1% of bitcoin’s current circulating supply of about 17.4 million coins.
BTC Investment Trust Trades “At 22% Premium” Over Bitcoin’s Market Price
The large amount of BTC is held in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust and its “shares are the first publicly quoted securities solely invested in and deriving value from the price of Bitcoin”, LongHash’s post explains.
Despite the long bear market this year, Grayscale has reportedly seen its investors adding to its “bitcoin position each month of 2018.” Moreover, the company’s BTC Investment Trust presently “trades at a 22% premium” over bitcoin’s average market price, which suggests that this type of financial instrument may be more appealing to accredited investors.
As CryptoGlobe reported on November 1st, Grayscale had released its Q3 2018 cryptoasset investment report. The year-to-date (YTD) summary of the report revealed that the investment firm had raised $329.5 million so far – in order to fund the ongoing development of its financial products.
Ethereum Classic (ETC) Investment Trust Is Worst Performing
The company’s financial outlook report also noted that the majority, 59%, of investments had come from its institutional clients. Notably, Grayscale’s management team had said that “new investment” into its products continued to remain “strong” – as it raised $81.1 million during Q3 2018. The majority of investments (59%) have come from institutional clients.
As covered (on November 22nd), the value of Grayscale’s assets under management dropped by almost $400 million due to the massive digital currency market sell-off – which has seen the market capitalization of the nascent asset class fall sharply from all-time highs of over $800 billion to currently around $125 billion.
Grayscale’s Ethereum Classic (ETC) Investment Trust has notably been one of its worst performing investments – as its value dropped from $42.5 million to $26.1 million, which was almost a 40% depreciation in a span of about 3 weeks (late October to November 22nd 2018).
