Home » Spot Bitcoin ETF: Genesis has finished selling its GBTC shares equivalent to over $2 billion

Spot Bitcoin ETF: Genesis has finished selling its GBTC shares equivalent to over $2 billion

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Genesis has finished selling its shares in GBTC, Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF, equivalent to over $2 billion, as part of its bankruptcy. By converting the profits into Bitcoin, Genesis hopes to reimburse its customers harmed as part of its bankruptcy.

Genesis has finished selling its GBTC shares

The end of selling pressure on GBTC, Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF? According to Bloomberg Law, bankrupt Genesis has completed the sale of its GBTC shares, estimated to be worth over $2 billion.

Genesis did not exchange its GBTC shares for dollars, but for Bitcoin. This was to help reimburse its aggrieved customers, whose losses are estimated at $3.4 billion. Of this sum, Genesis owes Gemini around $765 million under the “Gemini Earn” offer.

According to Arkham Intelligence data, GBTCs sold by Genesis, equivalent to over 32,000 Bitcoins, would have been sold in the last 3 weeks.

As part of its bankruptcy proceedings, Genesis had obtained authorization to sell its 36 million GBTC shares last February, in addition to shares in 2 Ethereum trusts also issued by Grayscale.

While this news means that selling pressure on GBTC will now be lessened, it does find itself redirected to Bitcoin, as Genesis customers will be reimbursed in BTC at a later date.

Less sales to come for Grayscale’s GBTC?

At the time of writing, Grayscale’s GBTC is equivalent to around $21.8 billion, or 1.64% of Bitcoin’s supply. By way of comparison, when it launched on the ETF market last January alongside giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity, Grayscale held over $28 billion in BTC following the conversion of its trust.

Since its launch, however, GBTC has undergone significant sell-offs. Sometimes for economic reasons, as the GBTC is currently the most expensive ETF in this market segment, sometimes because investors who had positioned themselves in the former trust wished to take profits due to the rising price of Bitcoin.

As we can see below, if Genesis sales have been taking place over the last 3 weeks, then stopping them should actually have little impact. Indeed, since its launch, Grayscale’s GBTC has only had days when its outputs exceeded its inputs.

On the contrary, BlackRock and Fidelity, its 2 main competitors in this market segment, are seeing a steady stream of demand for their respective Bitcoin spot ETFs, IBIT and FBTC. BlackRock currently holds $17.9 billion in BTC for this purpose, and Fidelity $10.2 billion. Unlike Grayscale, the latter began trading in January this year from scratch.

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