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Shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC:GBTC), which allows investors to gain exposure to the price of bitcoin (BTC-USD) through a traditional vehicle, reached their all-time discount to the stock price. Thursday, according to TradeBlock data.
The discount rate hit 47.8% at the time of writing, and shares of GBTC have not changed hands at a price higher than bitcoin (BTC-USD) since March 2021. Shares of GBTC 80% in the last year against bitcoins (BTC-USD) 66% to fall. The move comes as a contagion effect from the recent failure of crypto exchange FTX (FTT-USD) to continue its spread, adding bearish sentiment to an already troubled market.
“The fact that Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust is now trading at a 50% discount is a big deal for GBTC holders. It also shows the huge structural differences between different trading vehicles,” Bradley Duke, Co-CEO at crypto ETP provider ETC Group, told Seeking Alpha via email. .
Crypto brokerage Genesis Global Trading, owned by parent company Grayscale Investment Digital Currency Group, suspended redemptions and applications for new loans after FTX (FTT-USD) crashed last month. According to Twitter on November 16, though, Grayscale encouraged that “Genesis Global Capital is not a partner or sponsor of any Grayscale product,” and therefore “the recent events did not affect commercial operations.”
Earlier this week, hedge fund Fir Tree is reportedly suing Grayscale to protect information related to its GBTC (OTC: GBTC) development fund to determine whether mismanagement and conflicts of interest have occurred. Fir Tree, which manages $3B, wants to use the information to drive Grayscale to restart the buyout with lower fees, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Earlier, (Dec. 7) Seeking Alpha sponsor The Digital Trend reported that “GBTC is inferior to Bitcoin, just as the Gold Dollar was inferior to Gold.”
