Bank of America reports that the largest public holder of Bitcoin is Grayscale
In a report on Wednesday, Bank of America said that the largest public holder of bitcoin is Grayscale, and its bitcoin trust fund may have nearly 700,000 bitcoins, accounting for 3.5% of the total supply, with a value of more than $31 billion.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, established in 2013, is the first choice for investors who want to increase bitcoin exposure in their portfolios instead of buying bitcoin directly. As of Tuesday, the trust fund managed $36.1 billion in assets.
Bank of America said: "The trust has been buying bitcoin steadily in 2020, especially in the fourth quarter of last year, and has become one of the top five holders of the cryptocurrency".
According to the monitoring data of Bitcoin Treasuries, MicroStrategy(91,326), Tesla (48,000) and Galaxy Digital Holdings(16,402) are all large institutional investors of Bitcoin, and Grayscale is the organization with the largest amount of positions in the fund category.
Grayscale Trust has been the only choice for investors seeking easy access to Bitcoin for many years, because SEC has been blocking the launch of Bitcoin ETF for many years.
However, with the introduction of bitcoin trust by rival Osprey and the increase of bitcoin ETF applications, the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.
Last month, the annual fee of Osprey Bitcoin Trust was only 0.49%, which was much lower than that of Grayscale. As of Tuesday, Osprey Trust has attracted $103 million in assets under management.
In February of this year, with Canada's approval of Purpose Bitcoin ETF traded on Toronto Stock Exchange, Bitcoin ETF was also launched for the first time in North America. Issuers who have submitted bitcoin ETF applications to the SEC of the United States include Vaneck and WisdomTree.
As Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale, said earlier this month, even Grayscale is seeking to launch its own bitcoin ETF.
The company's recent recruitment information focuses on ETF experts, which indicates that the company is expected to enter this field if approved by SEC.
It remains to be seen whether ETF,Grayscale Bitcoin Trust can retain the title of the largest public holder of Bitcoin, with the competitor Osprey Bitcoin Trust gaining a foothold and the SEC of the United States expected to approve Bitcoin ETF.