New data from crypto intelligence firm IntoTheBlock finds that Bitcoin (BTC) whales have accumulated billions of dollars worth of the crypto king in less than 30 days.
In a new article, the crypto analytics platform says the amount of BTC held in wallets with over 1,000 Bitcoin has sharply risen during the first month of 2024.
IntoTheBlock notes that the figure includes entities such as BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which were approved earlier this year by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“‘Whales’ include any entity, individual or fund (including the ETFs) holding over 1,000 BTC. While Bitcoin ETFs have seen net inflows of $820 million, Bitcoin whales have seen an increase of ~$3 billion (76,000 BTC) so far in 2024. Including GBTC, Bitcoin ETFs now hold 3.23% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply.
This is a higher share of supply than in gold’s case, where $110 billion out of a market cap of ~$10 trillion is held in US-traded ETFs (approximately 1% of supply). Despite Bitcoin’s correction, the high ownership of Bitcoin ETFs suggests these have actually been getting decent traction among traditional finance investors.”
The analytics firm goes on to analyze the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) surrounding the Grayscale’s spot market BTC ETF (GBTC), saying that its $4.3 billion in outflows have been casting doubt on the success of BTC ETFs.
IntoTheBlock finds that at least $1 billion worth of the outflows were from bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.
“FTX’s bankruptcy estate had been holding GBTC at a discount and opted not to realize a loss by selling prior to the likely ETF conversion. Many other entities, including DCG (the parent company of Genesis) that had been holding at a loss likely decided to exit GBTC once it converted to an ETF and its discount went to near-zero.”
GBTC traded at a -47.35 % discount to its net asset value on February 13th, 2023. The discount gradually narrowed over time and went to zero on January 26th.
Bitcoin is trading for $42,274 at time of writing, a fractional decrease during the last 24 hours.
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