FTX Estate held 22.28 million shares of GBTC, but sold more than two-thirds of them at the start of spot ETF trading.
The estate for failed crypto exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research has sold more than two-thirds of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares, according to a Jan. 22 report from Bloomberg. The report cited “two people familiar with the matter” as its sources. FTX Estate may have raised at least $600 million as a result of the sale.
The report claims that FTX Estate held 22.28 million shares (worth $902 million at the time) of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust before Jan. 11. On that date, the Trust was converted into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). “More than two-thirds” of the shares were sold by FTX over the following three days of trading, the report stated, implying that it now holds less than 8 million shares worth roughly $281 million.
Alameda Research sued Grayscale in March for charging what it considered to be exorbitant fees. As part of the lawsuit, Alameda claimed that Grayscale was enacting a “self-imposed redemption ban” that prevented shareholders from acquiring the Bitcoin (BTC) held by its Trust. Most investors had no means of redeeming their shares for the Trust’s underlying Bitcoin prior to Jan. 11, and the Trust’s share price was 44% below that of the Bitcoin it represented as of June 15.
