GBTC's Ripple effect

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Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF now has a market share of below 50%

Key points:

  • Market share is below 50% for the first time since spot BTC ETFs began trading on 11th January

  • Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s AUM now down to $28.5 billion

News - Just two months into the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, Grayscale’s fund now has a market share of less than 50%. This is the first time its share has fallen below 50% since it was converted back in January. At the time, the same was also accompanied by the regulator approving 9 other spot BTC ETF applications.

What happened? GBTC’s total assets under management or AUM fell to just over $28.5 billion on the 12th of March. This, on the back of consistent outflows from the fund too. Owing to the same, Grayscale now has a share of just over 48%, with its erstwhile share being cut into by the likes of BlackRock and Fidelity.

This is a significant change from the first day of trading when Grayscale had a market share of over 99% of all funds’ total AUM. Since then, however, the market has diversified.

That’s not all, with uniform levels of outflows out of GBTC playing a role too. These outflows were accelerated after courts ruled that Genesis Global could liquidate its GBTC shares to pay off investors. In total, these outflows amounted to over $11 billion.

A Ripple effect - The performances of these spot Bitcoin ETFs have been critical to how BTC has done on the price front. Not only did the cryptocurrency hit new levels, but it is holding those levels too, with many expecting $100K to fall next.

Ripple CEO Garlinghouse recently agreed with this assessment, claiming that ‘soaring’ ETF volumes, the upcoming halving, and altcoins following BTC’s lead all contributed to the latest all-time high.

Integration of real-world assets (RWAs) is key to the sustainability of the crypto-realm, he added.

Ethereum to $5000 in 2024 could be a certainty

Key points:

  • After months of sideways movement, ETH is well past the $4,000-level

  • Metrics and social media sentiment seemed to support altcoin’s case for $5,000

News - With the world’s largest altcoin now priced at a level well past $4,000, many expect ETH to hike past its old ATH to hit $5K. Over the last few days, optimism has grown significantly, with analysts claiming that the resistance has ‘thinned.’

Matter of when, not if - According to Ali Martinez, ETH’s road to $5K is pretty clear and straightforward for the time being. However, the altcoin will have to negotiate a supply zone between $4,522 and $4,640 since over 600K address hold 1.6M ETH within these levels.

Additionally, at the time of writing, AMBCrypto found that Ethereum’s Aggregated Funding Rate was 0.068%. A positive reading implies that the altcoin is trading at a premium perp price well above the index value.

Taken into consideration in combination with ETH’s surging price and one can argue that the market’s shorts have been unsuccessful so far. The significant spike in active Ethereum addresses on the network over the last 3-4 days has also had an impact.

Other reasons - At the moment, every indicator and metric seems to be leaning bullish as far as Ethereum is concerned. For example, AMBCrypto’s analysis of Ethereum’s Network Value to Transactions ratio revealed that the altcoin is currently undervalued - A sign that ETH might hike on the price charts very soon.

Finally, figures for ETH’s net deposit on exchanges seemed low too, an indication of the low selling pressure on the altcoin right now.

Tether helps law enforcement with seizure of $1.4M USDT

Key points:

  • The seizure was first announced by the U.S Attorney’s Office in Chicago

  • FBI and DOJ also participated and assisted Tether’s efforts in this venture

News - Tether is in the news today after it assisted a host of U.S law enforcement agencies in their efforts to seize USDT worth over $1.4 million. According to the U.S Attorney’s office, the seizure pertained to proceeds of a customer support scam that targeted the elderly.

Tether is ‘proud’ - In a statement released to the media, Tether claimed that it is proud to collaborate with the U.S government to combat financial fraud within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Its latest efforts are a step towards upholding integrity in the rapidly evolving digital assets market, Tether added.

This isn’t the first time Tether has worked with law enforcement agencies, however. Back in 2023, Tether froze USDT worth $225M after an extensive DOJ investigation into a ‘pig butchering’ scam. Its efforts at the time allowed the DOJ to finally seize upwards of $9M in the stablecoin.

Here, it’s worth pointing out that this is one of the first times that USDT has been retrieved from an unhosted digital currency wallet.

In fact, according to affidavits filed before the courts, the aforementioned fraudulent proceeds seemed to be traced to 5 wallets in total.

Details of the scam - Victims were reportedly trapped via a popup ad that would tell them that their computer systems were compromised. A customer support number would then be given, with the executive then duping the victim into believing that their bank accounts were affected too.

The scammer would then direct the victims to transfer their bank funds to USDT to ‘keep it safe,’ following which all contact would be severed and the funds lost to the scammer.

Coinbase plans to raise $1B from senior convertible notes

Key points:

  • Funds raised will be used for ‘general corporate purposes,’ among other things

  • Senior convertible notes to be offered only to eligible institutional investors

News - Days after Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy did something similar, Coinbase is in the news after it announced plans to raise over $1 billion by offering senior convertible notes to certain institutional investors.

All the little details - According to Coinbase, the funds raised from this exercise will be used to repay debts and other ‘corporate purposes.’ Here, the latter refers to the inclusion of working and capital expenditures, the cost of capped call transactions, etc.

Coinbase will also use the net proceeds to repay its own set of outstanding senior convertible notes.

On the contrary, MicroStrategy’s intention behind its $800 million convertible note offering a few days ago was different, with the company using the funds to add 12K BTC to its treasury reserves. BTC’s recent performances on the price front may have contributed to this decision.

How did COIN react? - For its part, Coinbase (COIN) did not react too positively to the news of the crypto-exchange’s latest plans. In fact, within hours of the announcement, it fell by over 2% in after-hours trading.

Did you know?

  • Satoshi Nakamoto never used the term ‘cryptocurrency’ in his Bitcoin white paper. In fact, he even called the blockchain a ‘timestamp server.’

  • The popular slang term - HODL - owes its creation to a typo when a harried crypto-holder responded to online criticism with ‘I AM HODLING’

  • According to CoinGecko, over 14,000 of the 24,000 cryptos listed since 2014 have ‘died’ owing to reasons such as desertion, lack of node development, frauds, minimal traction, et al. 

Top 3 coins of the day

NEAR Protocol (NEAR)

Key points:

  • NEAR’s value hiked by 90% over a 7-day period.

  • Indicators suggested uptrend is unlikely to come to a close anytime soon

What you should know - NEAR has been one of the market’s best-performing altcoins in March, with the crypto hiking by over 90% in a week. Over the last 24 hours alone, the altcoin appreciated by over 18%. While Bitcoin’s performance and dominance of the market explains why altcoins are following suit, NEAR’s price hike can also be attributed to Illia Polosukhin’s scheduled speech at the NVIDIA conference. This bullishness was evident on the price charts, with the mouth of the Bollinger Bands widening around the price candles - A sign of volatility. Similarly, the Chaikin Money Flow was close to 0.40 and pointed to high capital inflows.

Toncoin (TON)

Key points:

  • Trading at $4.34 at press time, the altcoin hiked by over 50% in just three days

  • As it stands, TON is on the precipice of entering the top-10

What you should know - Like NEAR, TON appreciated by double-digits over the last few days on the charts. If it continues to do as well over the next few weeks, TON can be expected to overhaul the likes of Cardano and Dogecoin in the top-10. On the daily chart, while the Parabolic SAR’s dotted markers underlined bullishness, the MACD came to the same conclusion with its position above the Signal line. Outside of its price performance, other factors highlighted TON’s bullishness too. The long/short ratio, for example, hiked for TON recently - A sign that there is a growing preference for buying and holding in the altcoin’s market.

BONK

Key points:

  • After a major hike, BONK has settled into a sideways pattern on the charts

  • Volumes have fallen by over half since the first week of March

What you should know - Solana-based memecoin BONK was one of the market’s star performers in the first week of March, with the altcoin hiking by over 240% at one point. The past week has seen much of its bullish momentum evaporate though. Over the last 7 days, BONK has settled into a sideways pattern, with the same accompanied by muted volumes. It is too soon to say whether a definite downtrend is in store though. For instance - The RSI, after risking a fall, seems to be holding just under the overbought zone on the charts. However, that might change.

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