Investors have sold over $2 billion worth of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) since it became an exchange-traded fund earlier this month. FTX's bankruptcy estate was responsible for a large portion of the exodus, selling 22 million shares worth close to $1 billion. While new bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity have seen inflows, GBTC has seen billions of dollars worth of bitcoin pulled out. FTX's selling pressure may ease now that it has finished liquidating its holdings, which were valued at $597 million in October 2023.

According to a recent analysis by Colorways Ventures and The Consensus founder Kiarash Hossainpour, there may be a shockwave in the Bitcoin market, with some significant Bitcoin holdings potentially causing huge selling pressure on the market in the first half of 2024. First, Hossainpour warns people to pay attention to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Fund (GBTC), whose holdings have decreased from 621,000 BTC to just under 580,000 BTC since the launch of the spot ETF. Compared to other providers such as Bitwise (0.2%) and BlackRock (0.25%), the trust's high annual fee of up to 1.5% and Grayscale's history currently result in massive selling, which may be the reason for the current downward trend. Furthermore, there is no sign of an end yet. According to experts, there is still selling pressure of 281,045 BTC, or about $12 billion. In addition, the bankruptcy proceedings of Celsius and FTX exacerbate potential selling. It is expected that the liquidation and distribution will take place in the first half of 2024, and the approximately 38,000 BTC (worth $1.6 billion) provided by Celsius and the approximately 20,500 BTC (worth $850 million) provided by FTX may be converted into dollars.

On January 20th, ETF analyst Eric Balchunas from Bloomberg released data on social media showing that today's GBTC negative premium has further narrowed to within 0.3%, recording 0.296%.

JPMorgan stated on Thursday that up to $3 billion has been invested in GBTC on the secondary market to take advantage of the discount to the trust fund's relative net asset value by 2023. If this estimate is correct and taking into account the $1.5 billion that has already exited, another $1.5 billion may be profitably withdrawn from the field through GBTC, which could put further pressure on Bitcoin prices in the coming weeks. The report also states that this outflow of funds has put pressure on GBTC to reduce fees and adds that "compared to other spot Bitcoin ETFs with further fund outflow risks, GBTC's 1.5% fee still appears to be high. If GBTC loses its liquidity advantage, it may withdraw more capital, potentially exiting an additional $5 billion to $10 billion."

According to BitMEX Research, GBTC flow data for the fourth day has been released, showing that 458 million USD flowed out of GBTC on the fourth day, with a total outflow of 1.6 billion USD.

Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, stated on X platform that GBTC has officially completed its transition to an ETF.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has submitted a written prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the US Securities Act 163/433.

ARK Invest, the investment firm led by Cathie Wood, has sold off its remaining holdings of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares, worth around $200 million, and used $100 million of the proceeds to buy shares in the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO). This move has made ARK Invest the second-largest holder of the Bitcoin futures ETF. The firm's reshuffling of its portfolio comes amid speculation around the possible approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with hopefuls rushing to finalize their applications before a potential approval window in January.

According to Coinglass data, the current total value of Grayscale's holdings is approximately $38.558 billion, with the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Fund (GBTC) having a negative premium rate of 7.57%; the ETH Trust has a premium rate of 13.36%. In addition, the ETC Trust has a premium of 29.03%, and the LTC Trust has a positive premium of 70.72%.

ARK, led by Cathie Wood, has sold 809,441 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) for around $28 million as bitcoin approaches $43,000. This brings the investment firm's remaining GBTC shares to 3.4 million ($117.4 million), down from a peak of 9 million shares in July 2021. ARK purchased the GBTC shares at an average cost of $24.08, making a profit on this sale as GBTC currently trades at $34.54. Bitcoin is currently trading above $42,900, up 17% in the last 30 days.