Key Points
- Bitcoin’s rise above $67,000 resulted in almost $40 million in short liquidations.
- Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) experienced over $2 billion in outflows last week, possibly due to Genesis Global Holdco LLC’s potential sale of GBTC shares.
Bitcoin’s recent increase in value, surpassing the $67,000 mark, led to nearly $40 million worth of short liquidations of the cryptocurrency.
Over the last 24 hours, the crypto market saw liquidations totaling more than $164 million.
Short Positions Bear the Brunt
Notably, short positions made up the majority of these liquidations, amounting to around $105 million.
Short positions in Bitcoin experienced the most significant impact, with close to $40 million liquidated in the last 24 hours, as per data from Coinglass.
This occurred as Bitcoin’s value broke the $67,000 threshold.
Grayscale’s Sell Pressure
Meanwhile, last week marked the first time in two months that the crypto market saw net outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, primarily concentrated around the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
GBTC’s outflows last week exceeded $2 billion, a 58% increase from the previous week’s $1.26 billion in outflows.
Analysts from Coinbase speculated that the selling activity on GBTC may have contributed to the increased net outflows observed last week.
They suggested that Genesis Global Holdco LLC’s potential sale of 35.9 million GBTC shares, worth approximately $2 billion, might have caused the selling pressure on GBTC last week.
Genesis received approval on February 14 from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to sell its GBTC shares.
However, it remains unclear whether the recent GBTC outflows are connected to these sales due to the lack of immediate public filings announcing them.
Coinbase analysts noted that if these specific GBTC sales have been completed, the macro environment remains favorable for more spot Bitcoin ETF inflows following the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting that concluded on March 20.
Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg, Eric Balchunas, suggested that last week’s significant GBTC outflows were likely due to Genesis.
He mentioned on social media that the nine new Bitcoin ETFs have taken in about $1.2 billion in the past five days as the price declined by 8%.
He added that the ETFs have been net buyers of BTC, and none of the new money has left, in fact, more has come in.
