Over the past week, digital asset management firm Grayscale Investments has increased its reserves by 17,100 Bitcoin (BTC), according to its website and crypto analytics platform bybt.com. That’s an increase of $186.5 million.
As a result, the GBTC Bitcoin trust, which was created in 2013, now amounts to nearly 450,000 BTC—or $4.7 billion. This corresponds to 2.5% of the amount of Bitcoin in circulation.
This doesn’t necessarily mean Grayscale is buying this Bitcoin directly. It can either purchase Bitcoin on behalf of clients, or it can issue shares in exchange for Bitcoin. In the latter case, it wouldn’t be sucking up any of the available supply and wouldn’t be affecting its price.
The increase in Grayscale’s reserves comes amid a pullback in the price of Bitcoin. Earlier this month, the first cryptocurrency made another unsuccessful attempt to gain a foothold above $12,000 and has been trading mostly above $10,000 since then.
While the Bitcoin fund constitutes the lion’s share of Grayscale’s funds, the company now has around $5.8 billion worth of assets under its management in total, according to its latest report.
As Decrypt reported, Grayscale received over $217 million worth of digital asset trust investments in a single week after launching a TV ad campaign—which didn’t even mention Bitcoin.
In early September, the firm also published a report for investors that suggested that today’s market is “reminiscent of early 2016, the period that preceded Bitcoin’s historic bull run.” If history does repeat itself, Grayscale is in the right position.
