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.
Altshuler Shaham Investment House, an investment firm in Israel, has doubled the amount of money it has after taking advantage of the cryptocurrency market’s bull rally late last year. Through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the Israeli firm managed to take a $100 million USD investment and turn it into $200 million USD. At present, Grayscale has around $31.4 billion USD in assets under management (AUM). This has been reported to weigh in at a significant portion of the cryptocurrency market, enough for the assets management firm to have a massive opportunity to shift the market if it makes any big moves.
Bitcoin was trading around the $21,000 USD mark – which was an all-time high at the time. Gilad Altshuler told Globes:
“The $100 million investment has become $200 million, and of the $200 million we have already sold about a third. This is a new investment for us. It took a few months until we got all the relevant approvals and all the opinions that approved our investment in the field.”
Altshuler continued that although the firm has sold some of the cryptocurrency assets, it’s possible that it might add more to the investment. The only factor that might change this is the price of the cryptocurrency and how quickly it shot up – implying that it might bot be the most stable bet. As Altshuler stated:
“It depends on the price. We were a little intimidated by the speed with which Bitcoin reached these prices, with its global market capitalization crossing the $1 trillion mark, and that worried us a bit.”
This being said, this is not the first time the firm has stepped into the waters of cryptocurrency. Back in 2017 when initial coin offerings (ICOs) were at a peak, the firm reportedly had positions in a local ICO.