Bitcoin price LATEST: Institutions STILL bullish on crypto

November and December have been near-calamitous for crypto. Recent bearish activity has seen traders fear that institutional investors have been alienated from the cryptocurrency market. However this belies digital currency investor Grayscale’s and other institutional players’ cont interest in bitcoin.

Grayscale Investments, a self-proclaimed “trusted authority on digital currency investing,” has accumulated thousands of bitcoin for its in-house investment trust.

Grayscale has this year seen its bitcoin investment swell by 30,600 BTC to 203,000 total – more than one percent of the bitcoin’s total circulating supply.

This equates to £650million ($826million) worth of bitcoin.

This makes it likely that institutions believe in and recognise immense value in cryptocurrencies.

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Crypto analytics unit Diar has reported: “Record inflows however have resulted in record Bitcoin equivalent holdings with December notching up a little versus the start of the previous month.”

The steady rise in BTC holdings indicates that capital continues to flow into this market through trusted third parties – a positive sign.

US conglomerate Genesis Trading has has also recognised how its lending service has seen an “incredibly strong reception” for cryptocurrency loans across “nearly a dozen digital assets” in the past six months.

These loans amounted to a monetary value of £453million ($553million).

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While many of its institutional debtors have already paid their loans in full, there is still £100million ($130million) worth of active loans, a figure that has only grown of the course of the lending service’s seven-month lifetime.

This indicates the crypto market downturn has not deterred these industry participants one bit, contrary to popular belief.

This continual institutional interest hasn’t gone fully unnoticed, with a number of institutions and forward-thinking crypto innovators establishing products, services, and platforms, aimed at high net-worth individuals and Wall Street.

Nasdaq recently announced that it will work on a bitcoin and Crypto 2.0 futures contract, aimed at institutional and retail investors alike.

And Fidelity Investments has also announced its own digital asset-centric subsidiary, slated to offer top-notch cryptocurrency custody and with trade execution.

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Ed Cooper, Head of Mobile at Financial technology company Revolut is also bullish about the crypto’s fortunes, in exclusive comments to Express.co.uk.

Mr Cooper said: ”While Bitcoin recorded one of its steepest monthly declines in November, we expect to see a return to more normal trading soon.

“We should soon see the price consolidate, with price increases driven by technological advances and increased adoption rather than the news cycle.

“Bitcoin has had to weather the storm in the last few months, but it will most likely regain its dominance in 2019.”

source: express.co.uk