-
MicroStrategy could soon hold more bitcoin than Grayscale.
-
The company has used the capital markets to continually raise money for additional bitcoin purchases, while Grayscale has seen large outflows of tokens since the US spot ETFs launched in January.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) could soon have larger bitcoin {{BTC}} pockets than Grayscale.
The company owned a total of 252,220 bitcoins, or 1.2% of its total supply, which is capped at 21 million, according to its final registration request on September 20. Grayscale, which had over 620,000 in its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) before the launch of the US spot ETFs in January, currently holds just over 254,000 tokens split between GBTC and the newer, cheaper Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC).
However, recent capital raises have netted MicroStrategy over $1 billion, which the company has yet to deploy (or at least hasn’t announced yet). Presumably these funds will be used for more bitcoin, which would add thousands of additional coins to the balance sheet and push its holdings well above Grayscale’s.
This would also make MicroStrategy the fifth largest holder of the cryptocurrency, behind BlackRock, Binance, Satoshi Nakamoto and Coinbase. An important distinction is of course that BlackRock, Binance and Coinbase hold bitcoins for customers, and not for their own account.
Led by then-CEO and now Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy began purchasing bitcoin in August 2020 with cash from its balance sheet. Since then, it has aggressively used the capital markets to raise billions to continually expand its holdings. The company’s average purchase price is just over $39,000, while the current price of bitcoin is around $64,000. The pile is worth about $16 billion today.
As for Grayscale, which pioneered public access to bitcoin through funds, it chose to keep the fee for its GBTC at a relatively high 1.50% – more than 100 basis points above all competitors – after the conversion to a spot ETF. The result was a rapid bleeding of his assets. The Bitcoin Mini Trust, which has a much more competitive 0.15% fee, has managed to add assets, but owns stood at only 33,753 tokens at the end of last week.
