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Stellar Primed to Break Out as Institutions Buy XLM en Masse

Stellar entered a new uptrend that has seen it rise over 60% since the beginning of the month. While institutional investors continue scooping up more XLM, prices look poised to break out.  

Institutional Demand Skyrockets

Institutional demand for XLM seems to be picking up at an exponential rate. Although a recent technical glitch caused core validators to drop off the Stellar network momentarily, investors have not been discouraged from getting a piece of this altcoin. 

Data from Bybt shows that Grayscale has gone on a buying spree, adding more upward pressure to the cross-border remittances token. The world’s largest cryptocurrency asset management firm has raked 5,566,271 XLM over the past month, worth roughly $2.5 million.

Stellar Primed to Break Out as Institutions Buy XLM en Masse
Grayscale XLM Holdings by Bybt

As institutional investors gain exposure to Stellar, prices have responded strongly. Since the beginning of the month, XLM’s market value has risen by nearly 60%, going from a low of $0.41 to make a new-yearly high of $0.66. 

XLM Targets New Yearly Highs

Despite the significant gains already incurred, the eleventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap seems to have more room to grow. 

XLM appears to have entered a consolidation phase on the 1-hour chart after its peak on Apr. 11. The short-term lackluster price action seen over the last 28 hours seems to be creating the pennant of a bull pennant formation. Meanwhile, the 37.60% upswing seen since Apr. 9 appears to have developed the pattern’s flagpole. 

Another spike in buying pressure around the current price levels in which Stellar slices through the pennant’s upper trendline or the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level at $0.61 will signal a potential breakout. 

If this were to happen, XLM’s price could surge by nearly 30% towards the 141.4% or 161.8% Fibonacci retracement level. These resistance barriers sit at $0.74 and $0.78, respectively.

Such an optimistic target is determined by measuring the flagpole’s height and adding that distance to the breakout point.

Stellar US dollar price chart
XLM/USD on TradingView

Even though the odds seem to favor the bulls, XLM perpetual swaps’ funding rates are at unsustainable levels

Funding rates of 0.1% or higher every eight hours suggest that market participants have entered a state of euphoria, leading to steep corrections.

At the time of writing, XLM’s funding rate is hovering at 0.2308% on Binance, 0.1320% on FTX, 0.2513% on Huobi, and 0.1380% on OKEx.

Stellar perpetual swaps' funding rates
XLM Funding Rates by ViewBase

Given the levels of greed in the cryptocurrency market, investors must note that XRP needs to hold above the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at $0.58 for the bullish outlook to prevail.

Failing to do so could lead to a correction to the 38.2% or the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level. These support levels sit at $0.53 and $0.50, respectively. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing, this author owned Bitcoin and Ethereum.

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Another Hedge Fund Gets Crypto Exposure via Grayscale’s GBTC

Another Hedge Fund Gets Crypto Exposure via Grayscale’s GBTCMillennium, the U.S.-based alternative investment management firm, has become the latest hedge fund to get exposed to cryptocurrencies via Grayscale Investments’ bitcoin trust. However, the extent of Millennium’s exposure to the crypto asset has not been disclosed as both Millennium and Grayscale executives have refused to comment. Nevertheless, a report by The Street says two […]

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Oracle Token Chainlink Replaces XRP in Grayscale’s Strategic Large Cap Fund

Oracle Token Chainlink Replaces XRP in Grayscale’s Strategic Large Cap FundThe digital currency manager Grayscale Investments announced that the firm has updated its Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) in order to add the crypto asset chainlink to the fund. Chainlink is the popular blockchain oracle network and the token will replace XRP after Grayscale removed the digital currency from the GDLC. Chainlink Added to Grayscale’s […]

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XRP User Files Lawsuit Against Nexo for $5M in Liquidations

One day after the SEC filed legal action against Ripple in December 2020, Nexo suspended XRP. Now, one California resident is suing Nexo for $5 million in losses from the move.

User Losses $5M in Nexo Debacle

The lawsuit has been filed by Junhan Jeong, a California resident who had taken out a fiat loan from Nexo using their XRP holdings.  

The lawsuit alleges that “Nexo acted in bad faith” by suspending XRP payments for loans and caused monetary losses of over $5 million for Jeong and other customers in loan liquidations.

On Dec. 23, 2020, a day after the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) took legal action against Ripple Labs, Nexo suspended the ability to pay back loans in XRP or use the asset as collateral.

The suspension meant that users could no longer use the asset as supplemental collateral to maintain their loans.

As per the loan conditions, users have to maintain a specific loan-to-value (LTV), which is the ratio between the money borrowed and the collateral held in a customer’s Credit Line Wallet. If the ratio exceeds a certain threshold (83.3%), the customer must deposit more cryptocurrency as additional collateral to maintain the requisite LTV ratio.

If the customer fails to do that, Nexo begins to sell off the assets held in a customer’s wallet to recover the loan amount.

Thus, the SEC’s legal action crashed the price of XRP from about $0.45 to ~$0.17 in a few days. The declining XRP prices amid regulatory action against Ripple meant certain customers would need to add more funds (besides XRP) to maintain their LTV ratios. Eventually, Nexo had to liquidate some of their customers’ funds, who could not add sufficient collateral to support their XRP-backed loans. 

The legal document filed by Jeong’s lawyers claims Nexo sold off his collateral funds consisting of 598,384.6188 XRP.  The plaintiff complained Nexo did not provide notice on email or phone about the incident.

“Nexo’s failure to provide such notice was thus unfair, had the effect of destroying the contractual rights of Nexo customers,” the document alleges. 

Navigating Legal Uncertainty

Meanwhile, Nexo says that the company was in adherence with regulations and its own terms and conditions. The firm said they intended to protect its clients during regulatory uncertainly pertaining to XRP.

The lending platform wasn’t the only firm to react this way either. Grayscale liquidated its XRP holdings and Coinbase halted trading of the asset too.

“Nexo had to undertake the necessary actions to protect its clients and business by temporarily suspending credit line repayments in XRP, the withdrawal of new XRP-backed credits, and the standard Nexo exchange service related to XRP,” the company clarifies in a blog.

In an email interaction with Crypto Briefing, Nexo dismissed the claims.

A spokesperson stated that liquidations are an automatic process, and users were notified immediately when Ripple faced legal troubles. 

“Liquidations occur automatically as LTVs reach 83.3%; borrowers receive three margin calls before the liquidation. There’s no exception to this rule — it’s an automatic process, so the claimants were notified,” the Nexo spokesperson said. “We simply can’t be held responsible for any client’s personal decision to not read up and any failure to repay loans in time, considering no technical errors occurred at our end and all repayment options bar with XRP remained available.”

Concerning this particular case, Nexo said its legal team attempted to settle the matter amicably with the plaintiff’s lawyers but without success. 

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Grayscale Reveals Intentions to Convert the Firm’s Bitcoin Trust Into an ETF

Grayscale Reveals Intentions to Convert the Firm’s Bitcoin Trust Into an ETFOn Monday, the digital currency asset manager Grayscale Investments announced intentions to file for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) when permissible. The subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG) says in regard to its crypto trust products that it always been the company’s intention “to convert these products into an ETF.” Transforming Grayscale’s $34 Billion Bitcoin […]

Euler v2 goes live, introduces modular design and enhanced lending capabilities

Grayscale publishes roadmap for turning its products into crypto ETFs

The company is renewing its push for a U.S. ETF but offered no specific guarantees or promises.

After several attempts in previous years, Grayscale has renewed its push to release a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund on American asset markets. According to a Monday roadmap, two of its funds, GBTC and ETHE, are on the short-list to become proper ETFs. However, the company has not indicated any concrete efforts, such as filing a new request with the SEC, nor has it provided meaningful timelines for these plans.

Grayscale is one of the major providers of cryptocurrency exposure in traditional markets, operating several trust funds for major cryptocurrencies. These funds hold cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and many others, and issue shares that are expected to reflect the value of the underlying assets.

According to Grayscale’s roadmap, each trust fund falls into four categories of development. The first is the “private placement” phase, where the funds are only available for sale and purchase in over-the-counter deals with the company.

The second category is for publicly-listed shares on secondary markets, meaning that the trust funds receive a ticker symbol and become tradable by the public. Trust funds for Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin (LTC) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) fall into this category. Finally, the most advanced trusts achieve “SEC reporting” status, committing to periodic disclosure of their balance sheets and operations to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Only the Bitcoin and Ethereum trusts are reporting to the SEC currently.

The last and most coveted status is that of an ETF, a fully regulated and liquid fund. ETFs are commonly used for exposure to indexes or baskets of assets in U.S. stock markets. ETFs generally have lower management fees, achieve wider reach than trusts, and are designed to follow their net asset value very closely. Grayscale’s products are particularly weak from that aspect, as GBTC has consistently traded at a very significant premium over the value of the Bitcoin it held.

The GBTC premium has recently collapsed to become a penalty, with it currently trading 10% below NAV. Loss of this premium, coupled with stiff competition from Purpose Bitcoin ETF in Canada, may have spurred Grayscale into action.

The promise of a Bitcoin ETF has been one of the driving Bitcoin narratives since about 2017, when Grayscale first attempted to file for an ETF with the SEC. Regulators have consistently rejected these filings, often citing the unregulated nature of Bitcoin infrastructure as the main hurdle to overcome. Bitwise’s application for a Bitcoin ETF was one of the motivations for publishing its report on exchange volume in 2019, where it claimed that up to 90% of the reported volume was in fact non-existent. This argument was used by the company to claim that most of Bitcoin’s price formation occurred on regulated exchanges — but that did not convince regulators at the time.

A stream of Bitcoin ETF filings by companies, such as VanEck, WisdomTree and SkyBridge, is continuing in 2021, with Grayscale now reentering the fold as well. Given the long history of rejections, the company hedged its ETF promise by noting that “timing will be driven by the regulatory environment.” Institutional acceptance and infrastructure have made enormous strides since Grayscale’s last attempts, though it remains unknown whether this will ultimately sway the SEC into accepting its first application.

Euler v2 goes live, introduces modular design and enhanced lending capabilities

Grayscale Reveals Plans to Convert GBTC to Bitcoin ETF

In a blog post published this morning, Grayscale LLC announced its intention to convert its Bitcoin Trust Fund (GBTC) to an exchange-traded-fund (ETF).

Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Awaits Regulatory Approval 

Previously in 2016-2017, the digital asset management company had sought the SEC’s approval for a Bitcoin ETF. After failing to convince the U.S. regulators, Grayscale turned the focus to its trust fund for institutional investors. 

Four years down the line, the world’s largest Bitcoin trust commands $34 billion in assets under management.

According to the firm, the transition from an  SEC-reporting company to a Bitcoin ETF is the next step of its investment product’s evolution. The firm recently opened up several positions for ETF roles in the company

The company warned that investors “should not assume that such products will ever obtain an approval.” Still, they hope to make the GBTC available in secondary markets like mutual funds, pension funds, and other retail investment products after the SEC’s approval.

Euler v2 goes live, introduces modular design and enhanced lending capabilities

Grayscale Effect Pumps Filecoin, But for How Long?

Filecoin has been on a roll lately, surging more than 550% since the beginning of March. While institutional capital continues to flow in, the technicals point to a brief correction before further gains.

Institutional Demand Picks Up

Institutional capital seems to be flowing en masse into Filecoin. Data from Bybt shows that Grayscale has gone into a buying spree, adding more upward pressure to the decentralized storage network token. 

The world’s largest cryptocurrency asset management firm started increasing its holdings in mid-March and raked another 29,550 FIL in the past 24 hours.

Grayscale Effect Pumps Filecoin, But for How Long?
Grayscale Filecoin Holdings by Bybt

Grayscale’s latest purchase comes only a few days after online game operator The9 signed a $2 million deal to purchase Filecoin mining machines. 

The Shanghai-based company now owns an independent node on the FIL blockchain, and it is expected to have more than 80 Pebibytes of effective storage mining power in the network. 

Filecoin in Extreme Overbought Conditions

As institutional demand picks up, Filecoin has done nothing but shoot up. Since the beginning of March, FIL’s market value has risen by nearly 550%, gaining more than 200 points. 

Filecoin went from a low of $36.90 to recently hit a new all-time high of $238.50. 

While market participants grow overwhelmingly bullish, this altcoin is trading at extremely overbought conditions. Not only is the daily Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovering at a value of 88, but the Tom DeMark (TD) Sequential indicator has flashed multiple sell signals. 

The bearish formations developed in the form of a green nine candlestick and an aggressive 13 candle. These sell signals are indicative of a one to four daily candlesticks correction before the uptrend resumes. 

A spike in profit-taking around the current price levels could be significant enough to validate the pessimistic outlook. Filecoin could then drop towards the 50% or 38.2% Fibonacci retracement levels to look for support.

These interest areas sit at $156 and $136, respectively. 

Filecoin US dollar price chart
FIL/USD on TradingView

Given the significant bullish momentum that Filecoin is going through, the optimistic scenario cannot be disregarded. A green two candlestick trading above the current green one candle would invalidate the sell signals and lead to higher highs. 

By slicing through the recent peak of $238.50, the odds will substantially increase for an upswing towards $300. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing, this author owned Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Euler v2 goes live, introduces modular design and enhanced lending capabilities

Bitcoin’s Price Consolidates, Elon Musk Tweet Sends Dogecoin Surfing, Filecoin Surges

Bitcoin’s Price Consolidates, Elon Musk Tweet Sends Dogecoin Surfing, Filecoin SurgesWhile bitcoin prices have been consolidating just under the $60k handle, a number of other alternative digital assets have seen steep gains. Two coins, in particular, the decentralized storage network filecoin token and the notorious meme token dogecoin have jumped well over 10% during the last 24 hours. On Thursday, April 1, 2021, otherwise known […]

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Institutional inflows into crypto hit lowest levels since October

Managers bought $21 million worth of digital asset investment products last week, according to CoinShares. On a market-cap adjusted basis, Ether remains the most popular investment.

Capital flows into cryptocurrency investment products rose again last week, though the pace of growth has slowed since the start of the year, possibly marking a local top in institutional demand. 

Net inflows totaled $21 million for the week ending March 27, according to CoinShares, a European digital asset manager. That was the lowest level since October 2020 when Bitcoin (BTC) was trading sub-$14,000.

Coupled with low investment volumes, investor appetite for crypto assets appears to have waned. The decline coincided with the lackluster price performance of major assets like Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), which have been unable to test new highs in recent weeks. Daily trade volumes for digital asset products fell to $788 million last week, compared with $900 million for the whole of 2021.

CoinShares noted that profit-taking was also in play, as investors sitting on large unrealized gains decided to take some off the table.

“We have recently witnessed a significant reduction in inflows and in some cases outflows, for the larger and longer established pre-2016 investment products,” the asset manager said, adding:

“We believe this is due to investors sitting on multi-year gains taking profits.”

Although Bitcoin investment products generated nearly half of the total weekly inflows, on a market capitalization-adjusted basis, Ether products were the most popular. Inflows into ETH investment funds rose by $5.4 million last week.

Total inflows increased for 21Shares and the Purpose exchange-traded fund but declined for CoinShares and virtually flatlined for Grayscale.

Despite the modest pullback in inflows, institutional investors remain a driving force behind the cryptocurrency bull market. As CoinShares reported last week, crypto assets held by institutional investment managers have topped $57 billion. And while Bitcoin and Ether continue to trade below all-time highs, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose to near-record levels on Monday. The total crypto market cap peaked just north of $1.83 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Euler v2 goes live, introduces modular design and enhanced lending capabilities