The Spot Bitcoin ETF has been an important topic for the cryptocurrency industry since the last quarter of 2023. Although it was thought that the months-long adventure would end with the approval in January 2024, it was not as expected. Markets are still exposed to price pressure due to ETFs despite the approval every day.
After the Spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved, the biggest expectation of the markets, the inflow of billions of dollars of new money and institutions, was not as expected. Bitcoin, which rose as high as $49,000 until the approval of the Spot ETF and the first day after the approval, continued to fall, bleeding every day after the approval. Behind this decline were spot Bitcoin ETFs, which were expected to bring a rise.
ETFs created a serious excitement in the markets from the first minute they opened for trading. The volumes achieved in the first hour and day were far above expectations, leading investors to ask the question "Are we there yet?" after months of hard work. After more than 1 year of bear dominance and the spot Bitcoin ETFs, the high volumes were seen as a harbinger of the bull, but the dream did not last long.
Even with the approval of the Spot Bitcoin ETF, there was a player that stood out from other companies that were accepted: Grayscale. The sales of thousands of Bitcoins every day suddenly caused serious price pressure on the Bitcoin price. Contrary to expectations, while other brokers' ETFs were seeing new money inflows, Grayscale was selling and selling tens of thousands of Bitcoins every day.
These sales caused the price of Bitcoin to fall and suppress the price of Bitcoin every day, suppressing the hype that the ETF was expected to generate.
As cryptocurrency traders followed the close of the day, they also started to follow how much Bitcoin Grayscale would sell once the US exchanges opened. But Grayscale was not alone. On top of all this price pressure, the US also got into the game and announced that it would sell some of the Bitcoins it held within 60 days.
Here is the amount of Bitcoin declared by the US since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs:
Grayscale 5.4 billion dollars U.S: $117 million
Since the approval, Grayscale has sold $5.4 billion, but the overall total of spot Bitcoin ETFs is up by about $1 billion. Although Grayscale still holds $21.2 billion worth of Bitcoin, sales continue to decline every day. This helps alleviate the price pressure.
