203,000 BTC: Grayscale Investments Now Holds Over 1% of Bitcoin's Circulating Supply

 Grayscale, a digital currency investment firm established in 2013, now holds over 203,000 bitcoin (BTC) - an amount currently worth about $780 million according to CryptoCompare data.According to LongHash’s  research, this makes Grayscale - a subsidiary of the Digital Currency  Group - the largest institutional holder of bitcoin, with more  than 1% of bitcoin's current circulating supply of about 17.4 million  coins.

BTC Investment Trust Trades "At 22% Premium" Over Bitcoin's Market Price

The large amount of BTC is held in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust  and its “shares are the first publicly quoted securities solely  invested in and deriving value from the price of Bitcoin”, LongHash’s  post explains.Despite the long bear market  this year, Grayscale has reportedly seen its investors adding to its  “bitcoin position each month of 2018.” Moreover, the company’s BTC  Investment Trust presently “trades at a 22% premium” over bitcoin’s  average market price, which suggests that this type of financial  instrument may be more appealing to accredited investors.      As CryptoGlobe reported on November 1st,  Grayscale had released its Q3 2018 cryptoasset investment report. The  year-to-date (YTD) summary of the report revealed that the investment  firm had raised $329.5 million so far - in order to fund the ongoing  development of its financial products.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) Investment Trust Is Worst Performing

The  company’s financial outlook report also noted that the majority, 59%,  of investments had come from its institutional clients. Notably,  Grayscale’s management team had said that “new investment” into its  products continued to remain “strong” - as it raised $81.1 million  during Q3 2018. The majority of investments (59%) have come from  institutional clients.

As covered  (on November 22nd), the value of Grayscale’s assets under management  dropped by almost $400 million due to the massive digital currency  market sell-off - which has seen the market capitalization of the  nascent asset class fall sharply from all-time highs of over $800  billion to currently around $125 billion.Grayscale’s Ethereum Classic (ETC)  Investment Trust has notably been one of its worst performing  investments - as its value dropped from $42.5 million to $26.1 million,  which was almost a 40% depreciation in a span of about 3 weeks (late  October to November 22nd 2018).