Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ($GBTC) is currently the largest listed cryptocurrency asset with $30.17 billion in assets under management. The firm currently holds more than 655,730 BTC and the security is tradable in the United States through over-the-counter markets. How is GBTC different from a Bitcoin ETF? The fund was launched in 2013 and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust became the preferred institutional vehicle in the U.S. for BTC due to the lack of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Investment trust funds are regulated by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and they are designed exclusively for accredited …

Want to buy decentralized finance exposure from your stockbroker? Grayscale may be on the cusp of making it a reality. In a press release today, the issuer of popular exchange-traded products such as Bitcoin (BTC)-backed Grayscale Bitcoin Trust announced a list of new assets under consideration — and over a third, or 8 of 23, come from Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem. Aave, Compound's COMP, MakerDAO's MKR, Reserve Rights (RSR), SushiSwap's SUSHI, Synthetix Network Token (SNX), Uniswap's UNI and Yearn.finance's YFI joined increasingly popular layer-one chain assets such as Polkadot's DOT, Cosmos' ATOM and Cardano's ADA on the list — a sign …

Bitcoin (BTC) hit yet another all-time high on Feb. 19 as the largest cryptocurrency set its sights on becoming a trillion-dollar asset. Another day, another Bitcoin record Data from Cointelegraph Markets and Tradingview showed BTC/USD reaching $52,932 on Bitstamp at the time of writing after rising % in an hour. Holding $50,000 support over the past two days, Bitcoin was primed for further gains in the short term, analysts believed, with one area in particular capturing hodlers' imagination. At around $53,600, Bitcoin's total market cap will pass $1 trillion for the first time in history. "It is simple. In the …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been outperforming Ether (ETH) in the past several days as BTC surged above $50,000 for the first time in history. Meanwhile, one popular cryptocurrency trader explains that this is "simple math" given the growing institutional demand for BTC. While ETH is beating BTC in USD terms year-to-date, Bitcoin is gaining steam in February, up 60% compared to Ether's 50%. Ether did rally by roughly 6% over the last 24 hours as Grayscale added 20,000 ETH to its Ethereum Trust. However, Grayscale's BTC stash is worth $34 billion, which dwarfs its ETH holdings of $5.8 billion. More institutional …

In the early hours of Feb. 11 Yearn.finance (YFI) experienced a high volume spike which pushed the price to a new all-time high at $45,900. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that YFI hit a swing low at $33,638 on Feb.10 before experiencing a 26% breakout of 26%. The move appeared to be motivated by a corporate registration filing with the State of Delaware which showed Grayscale Investments registering the LLC for a Yearn finance trust similar to its Bitcoin and Ethereum products. A range of new partnership announcements and further expansion of its vast DeFi ecosystem are also …

Grayscale Investments has registered an LLC for a prospective Yearn Finance (YFI) Trust, giving the first sign that the asset manager is considering the DeFi coin. The new YFI entity was incorporated as a Statutory Trust in Delaware on Feb. 10, 2021. Grayscale now has 33 registered trusts in the state, though only nine are active, based on the fund manager's AUM reports. This includes the industry-leading Bitcoin Trust, which has nearly $30 billion in assets. Grayscale has also formed LLCs for Polkadot, Uniswap, Theta and Cardano, among many others. Registering a corporation doesn’t mean that the new business entity …

Not all analysts are convinced that Tesla’s recent acquisition of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) will prove to be as beneficial for the tech giant as it was for the BTC coin price. Head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, Peter Garnry, wrote in a research note that Elon Musk had exposed Tesla and its investors to “immense risk”, as reported by Reuters on Feb. 11. “Elon Musk has exposed Tesla to immense mark-to-market risk,” wrote Garnry, adding that the main concern for investors was valuing Bitcoin’s worth over the long term, given the intense market volatility it’s been …

2021 is shaping up to be a generous year for cryptocurrency donations. On Wednesday, Coin Center, the leading cryptocurrency nonprofit in Washington, D.C., announced that it had raised millions in additional funding from high-profile names in the crypto industry. Jerry Brito, Coin Center’s executive director, tweeted that his organization had received enough donations to claim the $1 million in matched contributions from Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest crypto fund manager. Less than three weeks ago, Grayscale announced that it had donated $1 million to the advocacy group and pledged an additional $1 million in matched contributions. A few days later, …

Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnnenshein says institutional demand for Bitcoin (BTC) has only increased, moving into 2021, following a record-breaking year that saw Grayscale’s assets under management soar to new heights. Sonnenshein told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Feb. 10 that the record inflows witnessed last year have continued, and interpreted this as a sign that Bitcoin’s current upsurge could continue. Contrary to narratives emanating from government entities, Sonnenshein says regulation is not a concern for would-be investors, many of whom, he claimed, are satisfied that enough regulatory clarity has been provided. Sonnenshein said, “Conversation point number one starts around regulatory concerns, …

Litecoin (LTC) might be 60% below its December 2017 all-time high at $420, but that hasn't stopped its futures contracts open interest from reaching a record $584 million. This makes LTC the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and it ranks third in derivatives, behind Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). As shown above, LTC futures aggregate open interest increased by 285% over the past three months. One should keep in mind that such an event is not necessarily positive since futures contracts require both a buyer (long) and a seller (short). Nevertheless, this increasing interest allows even more substantial players to …

Crypto asset manager CoinShares has reported that investment inflows into institutional cryptocurrency funds surged last week, and the majority of it was Ethereum. The report states that of the $245 million crypto inflow last week, 80% of it or $195 million was invested into Ether products ahead of the launch of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Ethereum futures contracts on Feb. 8. Comparatively, Bitcoin had $41.9 million of the weekly flows, with a year-to-date total of $2.02 billion. The report suggested that investor diversification was starting to occur, adding that there was little evidence of taking profits with investors preferring to …

Hedge fund legend Bill Miller is exhibiting an even larger appetite for Bitcoin (BTC). According to a Friday filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, The Miller Opportunity Trust is seeking indirect exposure to BTC via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. The planned investment is coming at a time when the GBTC premium is at its lowest level since April 2019. If the GBTC shares acquisition does pull through, it will mark a significant departure from the usual investments in equities and derivatives for the $2.25 billion fund. Indeed, the trust’s website lists airlines, healthcare and financials among its …