Bitcoin Bounces as Grayscale Slows Down Sales

Bitcoin has jumped above $40,000 again after taking a big hit at the start of the week. Can we thank Grayscale for the reprieve?

3 min read

Jan 24, 2024

Despite Bitcoin (BTC) taking a heavy hit on Tuesday, it's up today—and has broken above $40,000 again.

CoinGecko data shows that the biggest digital coin by market cap has bounced above $40,000 multiple times so far on Wednesday, and currently sits at $40.050. It's up more than 2% on the day.

Bitcoin has steadily dropped in price since long-awaited spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hit Wall Street on January 11.

First, the price of the asset shot up and nearly touched $49,000 for the first time since 2021. But then it took a hard hit. This is because Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is experiencing outflows following its transition to a proper spot ETPF. Before, the fund traded like a closed-end investment vehicle, and investors couldn't redeem shares.

But now, they want to cash out, experts told Decrypt. Over half a billion dollars worth of GBTC cashed out in the first few days. This is leading to pressure on the price of the biggest cryptocurrency—and the rest of the market, too.

But the selling pressure is now calming, according to the latest figures from Bloomberg ETF expert Eric Balchunas. He wrote on Twitter (aka X) last night that GBTC's outflows on Tuesday were not as large as expected, and down from Monday's tally. It could explain why BTC is on the way up after recent losses.

Arkham Intelligence data showed that at the time of writing, GBTC had this morning (Eastern Time) sent a total of more than $213.8 million worth of BTC to Coinbase, its custodian.

Ethereum (ETH) has also taken a hit since the market crash; over the past week it's down more than 14%. But the second-biggest digital asset is now trading for $2,235, having jumped just over 1% on the day.

Other notable gainers on Wednesday include Solana (SOL), up 5% to about $87, and Avalanche (AVAX) with an 8% gain to a price above $31. That puts Avalanche back over Dogecoin for the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, per CoinGecko.

The entire cryptocurrency market cap today stands at $1.63 trillion, a 2.8% rise in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Get crypto news straight to your inbox--

sign up for the Decrypt Daily below. (It’s free).

Get Email!

Bitcoin Dips to $93,000 With $400 Million in Longs Rekt. Where to From Here?

Bitcoin witnessed a sharp sell-off on Monday, with the asset’s single-day performance giving up more than half of the gains made last week. The world’s largest crypto fell 4.8% on the day to just above $93,000, with Monday’s drop totaling more than $4,800. For context, that’s more than 55% of last week’s $8,100 runup. Still, analysts say the move is likely part of traders rebalancing their positions as they look to the end of the year, particularly in late December, which has proven to be a favo...

Rumble Adopts Bitcoin Treasury Strategy, Echoing Moves by MicroStrategy

Publicly listed Rumble Inc, a video-sharing and cloud services provider, announced Monday its board has approved a strategy to allocate up to $20 million of its cash reserves into Bitcoin. Its move aligns with a growing trend of corporate Bitcoin adoption championed by firms like MicroStrategy and Metaplanet Holdings. The Nasdaq-listed company said its diversification strategy underscores its belief in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and a tool for long-term value preservation. "We believ...

Solana DeFi Exchange Jupiter Puts $1.5 Billion Worth of JUP Airdrops Up to Vote

A new Jupiter DAO governance proposal created by Meow, the pseudonymous co-founder of the Solana decentralized exchange (DEX) and token launchpad, seeks a 70% “yes” vote to airdrop 700 million JUP tokens to the community in January—as well as another 700 million JUP tokens sometime after that. All told, that's nearly $1.5 billion worth of JUP at the current price. Those who stake the JUP token via Jupiter are eligible to vote on the proposal, earning voting power in a 1:1 ratio with the amount...

News

Courses

Deep Dives

Coins

Videos