While Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading currently in downward pressure of around $36,250, institutions and whales have started accumulating once again. The Bitcoin (BTC) price is down by more than 10% over the last week, and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has entered a buying spree once again.
Over the last three days, Grayscale has accumulated nearly 10,000 Bitcoins for its Bitcoin Trust. 50% of the total purchase comes just in the last 24-hours as GBTC pours another $190 million into Bitcoins. In the last three days since January 14, the total assets under management (AUM) for the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) have jumped by $3 billion to $22.9 billion in total.
Grayscale buys 5,132 BTC worth $189m over the past 24 hours, which equates to 5.7X of the daily Bitcoin mined. Their total #Bitcoin AUM now sits at $22.3 billion. pic.twitter.com/NpPL8lFHdl
— Bloqport (@Bloqport) January 16, 2021
Since Grayscale is acquiring nearly six times the new BTC entering the ecosystem, we can possibly enter another Bitcoin supply shortage. The New York-based investment firm has registered a staggering 900% growth for its GBTC in the last year of 2020. Grayscale’s newly appointed CEO Michael Sonnenshein recently said that they have been seeing massive interest from pension funds and endowments. Speaking to CNBC, he added:
“We saw a meaningful acceleration of institutional participation. There’s no longer professional risk of investing in the digital currency asset class — there’s probably more career risk in not paying attention to it.”
Bitcoin (BTC) – A Strong Inflation Hedge Against Massive Money Printing
Sonnenschein said that many professional investors see it as an alternative to traditional gold as well as a hedge against “perpetual money printing” by central banks and government stimulus. Only recently, President-elect Joe Biden proposed another $1.9 trillion stimulus package to fight the economic havoc caused by COVID -19.
Besides, the democratic government is preparing for yet another package in February to boost economic growth. The stimulus packages and central bank money printing over the last year have fueled the stock market as well as the crypto market. Economists and market analysts are thus predicting massive inflation in the foreseeable future. As a result, investors are now interested in another alternative to Gold that is more liquid. Sonnenshein said:
“The most prevalent theme for investment conviction in bitcoin is coming from a rotation out of gold. Investors are also anecdotally sharing that that’s where, and how they’re making room for bitcoin in their portfolios.”
During the popular crypto podcast interview at The Scoop, NYDIG chief executive Robert Gutmann said:
“100 out of 100 of the last conversations I’ve had with investors seriously looking to allocate, let’s say over 50 million dollars, 100% of those conversations have been about Bitcoin and 0% of them have been about any other crypto asset”.
Interestingly, Bitcoin whales have also been accumulating in recent times. As per data by Glassnode, the total addresses with over 1K BTC has reached an all-time high.
?? #Bitcoin $BTC Number of Addresses Holding 1k+ coins just reached an ATH of 2,425
Previous ATH of 2,424 was observed earlier today
View metric:https://t.co/cjV0krRVgK pic.twitter.com/WBiQqXtcSH
— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) January 16, 2021
