Grayscale: 84% of Q3 Interest Came From Non-Crypto Hedge Funds

Published on by Cointele | Published on

Grayscale's Michael Sonnenshein contends that the asset manager's recent Form 10 filing with American regulators would be "a milestone" for the crypto industry if it's approved.

Sonnenshein - managing director at the world's largest digital asset manager, Grayscale Investments - made his remarks during an interview with CNBC on Nov. 20.Hedge funds after digital asset exposure.

Earlier this week, Grayscale filed a registration statement on Form 10 for its publicly traded Bitcoin fund Grayscale Bitcoin Trust with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

If approved, the trust would become the first cryptocurrency investment vehicle to attain the status of a reporting company by the SEC. In his interview with CNBC, Sonnenshein noted the robust institutional interest in cryptocurrency access products.

"84% of inflows were from non-crypto hedge funds that want digital asset exposure."

GBTC has been trading since May 2015 and Sonnenshein noted that "If we just look at the last 3-month trading volume, it's tripled year-over-year," regardless of Bitcoin's performance on the spot markets.

"You have a lot of companies that want to have exposure to the space, but then you start to ask, who at the company is going to have the keys? Who at the company is going to do the due diligence and the ongoing compliance?".

Halving, not institutions, will drive Bitcoin's price.

Regarding any potential impact on Bitcoin's price, Sonnenshein discarded the institutional investor adoption narrative and emphasized instead Bitcoin's forthcoming halving - and consequent diminishment of supply - as a factor that has historically shown itself to have a positive impact on the asset's price.

As reported, Grayscale's regulatory foray follows a record year for the trust, which saw inflows of $254 million in total investment into its products in the third quarter of 2019.

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