Italy’s State-Owned Bank Trials Digital Bonds on Polygon Blockchain
The European Central Bank initiated the trial to explore how blockchains can enhance central bank settlement.
Grayscale Investments, the leading cryptocurrency asset manager, has properly resumed adding Bitcoin to its assets, bagging an additional $1 billion USD worth to its assets under management (AUM) over the course of a week.
Grayscale announced a market update, declaring its Bitcoin and cryptocurrency holdings. On October 22nd, the figure drove up to a total AUM of $7.3 billion USD up from $6.3 billion USD the week prior. The report shows that the assets held under management include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, ZCash, Stellar Lumens, and Horizen. Most significantly, the firm’s main asset is Bitcoin.
Barry Silbert, Grayscale CEO, commented on the news of assets recently added to the firm’s funds. In a tweet, he noted that the firm had added “a cool $300 million… in one day”:
Added a cool $300 million in AUM in one day https://t.co/G2lKu6QqxI
— Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) October 22, 2020
Bitcoin investment surges as PayPal launches cryptocurrency support
As reported, the price of Bitcoin recently shot through the roof, smashing through the $13,000 USD mark after several months of a stable trading range around $10,000 USD. This comes as a result of the news that PayPal has launched cryptocurrency support. With the rapid uptick in demand for the cryptocurrency, the market price for Bitcoin as well as other altcoins was quickly driven upwards.
This is obvious in both the market hype and the evidence in the institutional investment. With over $6 billion USD worth of Bitcoin under management, Grayscale holds approximately 2.5% of the total market’s supply. Institutional firms holding significant amounts of Bitcoin further includes MicroStrategy as well as CoinShares. These big investors, along with whale or large-scale Bitcoin holders, make up a major portion of Bitcoin control. This means that there is room for market manipulation, which could hurt the progress of Bitcoin growth overall. However, the token has seen steady adoption recently, and with the positive sentiment surrounding Bitcoin, the bulls are likely going to take over.
With Grayscale and other investors bumping up significantly, it’s likely that smaller investors will jump on board too, taking advantage of Bitcoin price before the predicted impending rally.