Bitcoin falls due to concerns about Grayscale sell-off - bulls liquidate more than $200 million | CoinDesk JAPAN

Contrarian bets show no signs of slowing down as the “selling on news” movement continues with the approval of Bitcoin (BTC) exchange traded funds (ETFs). As a result, futures traders betting on the rise in crypto assets (virtual currencies) have liquidated approximately $217 million (approximately 32.5 billion yen, at an exchange rate of 150 yen to the dollar) in the past 24 hours.

There are concerns that crypto asset fund Grayscale will sell its Bitcoin holdings, and some holders of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) appear to have sold, leading to a drop in price. . Wallets associated with Grayscale have moved more than $400 million in Bitcoin to custodian Coinbase Prime, according to blockchain analysis firm Arkham Intelligence. , indicating that the fund is preparing to sell.

Analysts noted that GBTC turned to a 0.9% discount on January 18 amid “likely selling pressure.”

On the ‘not a good sign’ front, GBTC’s discount has also reversed, the wrong way, back up to 96bps, likely due to selling pressure but who know we’ll see in the flows eventually pic.twitter.com/T7eXrmH6Ju

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 18, 2024

However, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), for example, had assets under management (AUM) of over $1 billion (approximately 150 billion yen) on the 17th, and other ETFs It is likely that most of it has been absorbed.

Bitcoin fell 3.7% to below $42,000 on the 18th, down 15% from December’s $49,000. This led to a market-wide pullback, with Ethereum (ETH) down 2.5%, Solana (SOL) down 6.5%, and Cardano (ADA) down 5%.

Meanwhile, Binance Coin (BNB) outperformed the market, rising 0.6%. This is driven by the launchpad of crypto exchange Binance, which is closely associated with this coin, where users can purchase and deposit BNB to earn allocations for new projects listed on the platform. be able to.

The drop in prices resulted in $217 million in losses on highly leveraged futures contracts betting on rising prices, and $88 million in liquidations in Bitcoin alone.

Liquidation refers to the forced closing of a trader’s leveraged position by an exchange due to the loss of some or all of the trader’s initial margin. This occurs when a trader is unable to meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position (does not have enough funds to continue trading).

Meanwhile, one trader said in a note on the 19th that he expects the crypto market to be range bound in the short term.

“BTC is hovering in the $40,000-$42,000 zone, which is likely to act as short-term support,” said Rachel Lin, CEO and co-founder of SynFutures. Ta. “Overall, this past week has been the calm after the storm. The ETF mania is over and the market is moving sideways, looking for the next trigger.”

｜Translation: CoinDesk JAPAN
｜Edited by: Toshihiko Inoue
｜Image: Shutterstock
｜Original text: Crypto Bulls Lose $217M as Apparent Grayscale Sales Weighs on Bitcoin