Grayscale Bitcoin Trust sold off a significant portion of its Bitcoin in January, Celsius to return over $3B to creditors, and $900M in tokens to be unlocked in February.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) aggressively sold Bitcoin in January. According to public holdings data tracked by Cointelegraph, GBTC dumped a total of 132,195 Bitcoin (BTC) last month, reducing its Bitcoin stash by 21% to 487,025 BTC on Jan. 31. The other nine funds were actively catching up, adding a combined total of 151,006 Bitcoin since the first trading day. The non-GBTC ETFs increased their holdings by more than 700% to 169,396 BTC at the end of January. Despite GBTC’s sell-off, the total Bitcoin held by all 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs rose by 3% to 656,421 BTC, valued at $27.7 billion.
Celsius has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States and is set to start distributing $3 billion worth of crypto and fiat to creditors, along with launching a new Bitcoin mining firm. In a Jan. 31 press release, the crypto lender said its bankruptcy exit sees the creation of Ionic Digital, a Bitcoin mining company managed by Hut 8 and headed by Hut 8 chief commercial officer Matt Prusak. Around 98% of Celsius creditors agreed to the bankruptcy exit plan, which comes over 18 months after it paused withdrawals in June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy a month later.
The digital asset market is bracing for the release of nearly $900 million in vested tokens in February, according to data provider Token Unlocks. Some of the tokens set to be released include Avalanche, Aptos (APT), The Sandbox (SAND), Optimism (OP) and Sui (SUI). Avalanche is set to unlock 9.5 million tokens, while Aptos plans to release 24.8 million. The Sandbox is scheduled to unlock a significant 209 million tokens. Optimism and Sui will also participate, releasing 24 million OP tokens and unlocking 53 million SUI tokens, respectively.
