Posted in Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Trading Down By 40%; Is This A Warning?

The negative premium for the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Fund expanded to 42.7%, while the Ethereum Fund’s negative premium dropped to 40.12%.

The recent FTX exchange collapse has left many digital asset markets feeling the heat. Several exchanges and lending platforms have been affected by this turn of events, but now even the world’s largest cryptocurrency fund is feeling the brunt of it.

The data reflected that expanded Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Fund’s (GBTC) negative premium was at an alarmingly high of 42.7%. In addition, the Ethereum Fund’s negative premium dropped to a still too-high 40.12%. These results have been record lows for both trust funds according to the research conducted.

GBTC, which owns 3.5% of the world’s Bitcoin, has seen a drop in value as investors are seemingly hesitant to invest in cryptocurrency following the recent FTX crash. However, Grayscale stated that it and its subsidiary DCG were not affected by Genesis’ collapse.

Since Bitcoin hit its All-time high in November, trust investors have lost 83%. Additionally, within the last year alone, prices have dropped 65%.

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is being traded at an average price of $16,748. The total market capitalization for BTC now stands at approximately $321.7 billion dollars.

Cryptocurrency investors have lost confidence following the implosion of FTX, with the global digital asset market cap dropping below $1 trillion.

On Wednesday, crypto lending platform Genesis suspended its services, worrying Grayscale investors. With more than $50 billion in loans originating from the company last year, its lending arm took a major hit from Three Arrows Capital’s collapse.

Until last month, Genesis had the authority to issue new shares for Grayscale securities. As a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, it was responsible for issuing new shares for GBTC.

Posted in Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Exchanges

Crypto Exchanges Report Outages as Bitcoin Price Rises

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) prices go up, cryptocurrency exchanges subsequently fall. Operations at bitcoin exchange platforms have been impacted by the recent rally in Bitcoin prices.

North America’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, experienced “connectivity issues” while Bitcoin was crossing the $40,000 mark on Thursday. However, after approximately four hours, the company’s support team tweeted that all supposed problems had been resolved.

According to Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, Bitcoin price crossed $20,000 last year and caused an outage. Another major cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken, experienced similar connection issues due to “heavy loads” but was back up after three hours.

After Bitcoin’s price fluctuations caused multiple disruptions of operations at Coinbase, the exchange went down. During the Bitcoin rally of 2017, there was a sharp selloff in cryptocurrency markets which effected Coinbase. Last year as Bitcoin gathered moremomentum,Coinbase experienced numerous outages. The issue has not only been effecting its retail-focused app, but also its institutional investor focused offering: Coinbase Pro.

The San Francisco-based company, with more users than Charles Schwab, is one of the biggest cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world. Downtime for this platform could have a significant effect on trading volumes for Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency’s price has increased rapidly due to global macroeconomic instability and institutional interest, leading to an influx of retail investors.

According to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, downtime issues at his exchange are due to “scaling issues.” In the past, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted that the company was investing in additional servers and customer support so that it could handle increased traffic loads better in the future.

That should be good news for investors, since the firm has submitted an IPO application. When Bitcoin’s price rises as a result of increasing consumer and institutional demand, the markets will not tolerate operational issues.