Bitcoin investors recently celebrated as the BTC price surpassed the $52,000 mark for the first time in two years. However, this joy may be short-lived due to an impending threat from Genesis, according to analysts.
A bankruptcy court approved Genesis' plan to sell shares of several Grayscale investments, including its 35.9 million shares in the Bitcoin ETF. The company's Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares are worth approximately $1.6 billion.
This sell-off could put significant pressure on Grayscale and therefore the broader market. Genesis is expected to repay creditors in cash or cryptocurrency, depending on the type of currency they deposited, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, chief global market strategy analyst at JPMorgan, told DL News.
JPMorgan believes the majority of customer deposits are in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but some creditor claims are in cash. Given the total size of creditor claims, which is potentially in the range of $5 billion to $6 billion at current prices, many of these GBTC shares are likely to be sold and converted into cash. This could potentially put downward pressure on Bitcoin prices if it is sold within a short period of time, according to analysts.
This makes Grayscale shares likely to see increased selling pressure in the coming weeks, according to Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. “We will see several major fund outflow days for GBTC,” Balchunas said.
*This is not investment advice.
