Despite the epidemic + halving, this year’s crypto market still won at the end of the year. Bitcoin successfully hit a record high. Ethereum set off a DeFi boom and 2.0 technology development… Of course, friends who are familiar with the crypto market do not I will forget that the new cattle created in 2020 are very different from the past. This is the year when institutional investors began to embrace cryptocurrency, and it is also an important year for investors to participate in the market in compliance.
During this year, institutions have moved from silent layout to strong “buy, buy and buy”, attracting global attention. According to Bankr.nl data, the world’s top ten crypto companies account for 4% of the total bitcoin holdings, of which 6 are from the United States, namely: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Block.one, MicroStrategy, Galaxy Digital Holdings, Stone Ridge Holdings Group and Square. In recent months, U.S. investment companies and technology companies have gradually increased their holdings of Bitcoin. In 2020, U.S. institutions will play a decisive role in the development of the Bitcoin market.
In addition, banks, insurance companies, payment companies, etc.’s layout and optimism about Bitcoin provide an important foundation for ordinary people to participate in the market.
Grayscale: keep buying, buying, buying
The embryonic form of Grayscale Investment Trust was a Bitcoin investment fund owned by SecondMarket, a private equity trading platform. In 2014, Barry Silbert, the founder of SecondMarket, separated the Bitcoin investment fund from the original company and established Grayscale Investments.
In 2015, Grayscale Investment Company was merged into the newly established Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG not only focuses on digital currency and blockchain investment, but is also an incubator for startups. As the most important behind-the-scenes participant in the crypto world, DCG is not only the direct controller of Grayscale Trust, but also Genesis, one of the largest cryptocurrency over-the-counter trading and lending platforms, the famous blockchain media Coindesk, the emerging mining service provider Foundry, and trading Luno’s parent company has directly invested in well-known crypto companies and institutions such as Bitpay, Circle, CoinList, Coinbase, Ledger, EtherScan, Paxos, Protocol labs, Xapo, etc.
For the crypto market in 2020, the dazzling part of Grayscale lies in the constant “buy, buy and buy”. The continuous increase in BTC holdings is considered to be one of the most important supporting forces for the rising market in the past few months.
According to official Twitter news, as of December 22, the total scale of Grayscale Asset Management rose to $15.9 billion. The transaction price of Bitcoin Trust Fund (GBTC) is USD 30.39 per share; the transaction price of Ethereum Trust Fund (ETHE) is USD 23.4 per share.
It is worth noting that the total scale of its asset management has increased by 2.5 billion US dollars in three days. On December 15, the total scale of Grayscale Asset Management was US$13 billion; as of December 18, this figure had risen to US$15.5 billion.
As a part of DCG investment, Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, conducts safe custody of gray digital assets. On December 18, it took the rise of Bitcoin and announced on its official website that Coinbase had submitted the draft registration document S-1 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission confidentially and formally applied for an IPO. If the IPO is successful, Coinbase will become the first major cryptocurrency exchange to go public.
With Grayscale as the forward, DCG can be regarded as one of the largest institutional forces pushing the development of the 2020 market.
Block.one: EOS parent company holds 140,000 Bitcoins
Block.one is the parent company of EOS. As a blockchain software company, Block.one was established specifically for the development of EOS. But EOS’s previous ICO allowed Block.one to earn up to $4 billion. Of this part of the funds, most of them were invested in U.S. bonds, and the other was the purchase of 140,000 bitcoins.
Of course, Block.one has previously held this amount of Bitcoin, and overall it cannot be used as a direct force to promote the development of encryption in 2020.
MicroStrategy: The listed company with the largest number of Bitcoins among software companies
MicroStrategy is definitely the “golden beast” of the Bitcoin market. As a software company, MicroStrategy has become the world’s listed company with the largest number and value of Bitcoin. And its CEO has been optimistic about Bitcoin many times in public and pointed out that Bitcoin is better than gold. I spent $600 million to buy Bitcoin and placed an order every 3 seconds for 14 days.
MicroStrategy’s purchase started in August. The company said at the time that it had purchased 21,454 bitcoins for $250 million and said it would use bitcoin as its main reserve asset. MicroStrategy also stated on December 7 that it plans to raise $400 million through convertible notes and use the net proceeds of the process to buy bitcoin. The convertible senior notes will expire in 2025 and will be raised from qualified institutional buyers through a non-public offering. On December 9, MicroStrategy officially issued a document officially announced the details of the previous convertible bill plan. According to the official, convertible notes worth 550 million U.S. dollars will be officially issued, and the net income from issuing the notes will be used to purchase bitcoin.
Mobile payment giant Square: announced that it has invested $50 million in Bitcoin
The payment company founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (Jack Dorsey) has been optimistic about Bitcoin for a long time.
In fact, the CEO of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, has long been a proponent of Bitcoin. In 2018, he expressed his belief that Bitcoin will eventually become the world’s single currency within the next ten years. Dorsey also personally owns an undisclosed amount of Bitcoin. He said on the earnings call in 2018: “For us, Bitcoin will not stop buying and selling. We really believe that this is transformative for our industry. Technology, we hope to learn as soon as possible.”
Since November 2017, Square has been selling bitcoin to consumers after adding a “buy” option to its Cash App. Through this service, Square has achieved rapid growth, generating $125 million in Bitcoin revenue in the third quarter of 2019, twice the revenue generated in the first quarter of 2019.
In addition, the financial report shows that Square processed $148 million in bitcoin sales in the third quarter of 2019. More and more users are turning to Square’s cryptocurrency APP: Cash, as the preferred service for Bitcoin investment. In 2019, Square also launched Square Crypto to provide grants to Bitcoin developers and designers.
In October of this year, Square directly announced that it had bought 4709 BTC with 50 million US dollars. Based on this calculation, Square’s cost of buying bitcoin this year is around US$10,600. After October, the price of bitcoin has soared to more than US$24,000. As a financial payment platform, Square’s support and purchase of the crypto market is one of the important forces to promote the prosperity and development of the market.
Stone Ridge Holdings, an asset management company: Purchases more than 10,000 bitcoins worth about 114 million US dollars
Buying Bitcoin as an asset reserve seems to be a common choice for listed companies and mainstream asset management companies. After MicroStrategy, an asset management company listed on the Nasdaq, announced that it had purchased a total of US$425 million in Bitcoin, making BTC the main holding type of its asset reserve strategy, on October 8, the mobile payment giant Square, with a market value of US$86.6 billion Announced that it has invested $50 million in Bitcoin (BTC). Five days later, Stone Ridge Holdings, an asset management company that manages more than US$10 billion in assets, revealed that as part of its asset reserve strategy, the company purchased more than 10,000 bitcoins worth approximately US$114 million.
Although the asset management company Stone Ridge Holdings purchased Bitcoin after MicroStrategy, given the current price development of Bitcoin, this does not prevent it from becoming a beneficiary of this round of crypto bull market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings: Provided institutional investors with new cryptocurrency services and purchased Bitcoin worth $134 million
Galaxy Digital Holdings is an encrypted digital currency commercial bank in the United States. The bank’s main business is digital currency trading, ICO investment, third-party asset management and consulting services, and is committed to providing digital currency and blockchain industries. Provide full-service commercial banking. Its founder is Michael Novogratz, an investment legend and former Goldman Sachs executive.
In 2019, Galaxy Digital Holding Ltd launched two new Bitcoin funds, mainly for qualified investors and institutional investors. These two funds have joined many other new cryptocurrency services for institutional investors, laying the foundation for the prosperity of the crypto market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings also purchased $134 million worth of Bitcoin on June 30, 2020.
Cross-border payment platform Paypal: allows users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency on the platform
In the year when mainstream society has been paying more and more attention to Bitcoin, perhaps the biggest surprise is that Paypal embraces cryptocurrency.
In October 2020, the payment giant announced that it supports users to purchase BTC, ETH, LTC and BCH. The unprecedented demand for this service has led Paypal to increase the withdrawal limit before all US customers purchase cryptocurrency. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman later declared that he was “optimistic about various digital currencies” Paypal stated that it would soon provide a channel for buying and selling fiat currencies for cryptocurrencies.
PayPal itself has active users, and these users will become the main force of PayPal’s online Bitcoin business, bringing prosperity to the crypto market.
Visa: Support USDC payment
Visa announced a surprising partnership with Circle to support USDC payments to 60 million merchants worldwide. The company will also issue a bank card dedicated to sending and receiving USDC payments. USDC is an ERC-20 token designed to anchor the dollar price.
In other words, Visa is slowly beginning to adopt Ethereum, and it is ready to help the world use it.
Singapore DBS Bank: announced that it will provide encrypted digital currency transactions
On October 27th, Singapore’s largest commercial bank DBS Bank announced on its official website the launch of the digital trading platform DBSDigitalExchange, which will provide legal currency (SGD, HKD, JPY, USD) trading services for four digital currencies: BTC, BCH, ETH and XRP . But then, DBS Bank’s official website removed relevant information pages about the digital trading platform. A DBS spokesperson subsequently stated that the bank’s digital currency trading platform plan is still under development and has not yet been approved by the regulatory authorities. Before approval, no announcement will be made.
On December 10th, DBS Bank announced the official launch of its digital trading platform DBSDigitalExchange, which will start trading next week. DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta said that the platform will provide exchange services between four legal currencies (Singapore dollar, US dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Japanese yen) and four digital assets (BTC, ETH, BCH, and XRP). Transaction services and custody services.
Ruffer Investment Company Limited: Configure Bitcoin to resist the risk of “devaluation” of legal currency
Ruffer Investment Company Limited is an investment management company listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company announced its new Bitcoin allocation strategy in December this year.
It is reported that the company has included Bitcoin in its Multi-Strategies fund, mainly as a defensive measure against the risk of “continuing devaluation” of legal tender. Bitcoin assets currently held by the fund account for approximately 2.5% of total assets. Last November, Ruffer made this asset allocation after reducing his gold holdings and switching to BTC.
Ruffer was founded in 1994 and, as of November 30, managed 20.3 billion euros (27.2 billion US dollars) in assets. The company has approximately 6,600 customers worldwide, including individuals, families, pension funds and charities.
The allocation of Bitcoin by listed asset management companies is promoting the continuous mainstreaming of Bitcoin.
One River: Silently holding more than $600 million in cryptocurrencies will hold more Bitcoin and Ethereum
One River, an asset management company headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, has become one of the largest investors in Bitcoin. This hedge fund that focuses on betting on market volatility has co-founded with Wall Street asset management company Brevan Howard Asset Management Alan Howard (Alan Howard) teamed up to quietly purchase more than $600 million in cryptocurrency.
Eric Peters is the CEO of One River Asset Management. He claimed that in addition to buying 600 million US dollars in Bitcoin this time, they will hold more Bitcoin and Ethereum next year. It is estimated that a total of 1 billion US dollars will be invested. There is no doubt that with the increasing interest of institutional investors in cryptocurrencies, One River is bound to increase its investment in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Massachusetts Life Insurance Company: The purchase of $100 million in Bitcoin digital currency is accepted by the mainstream
In December of this year, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. purchased $100 million in Bitcoin for its general investment account, which is the latest sign of the mainstream acceptance of this emerging digital currency.
MassMutual purchased these bitcoins through a New York fund management company called NYDIG. This investment is a negligible investment for the Springfield, Massachusetts-based insurance company-as of September 30, the company’s general investment accounts totaled close to $235 billion. But this means further development momentum for Bitcoin.
The continued presence of US listed companies, asset management companies, and insurance companies may drive the attention of mainstream companies in other countries. A small step for mainstream companies may be a big step for Bitcoin’s development. It is expected that more and more companies will deploy crypto assets such as Bitcoin.
