CRYPTO MOVERS AND PRICES
All assets in the Top 10 are considerably higher, with bitcoin (BTC) touching new all-time highs overnight, reaching about USD 35,600. In the Top 10, Stellar is seeing the largest 24-hour gains of 90%.
Crypto Story of the Day
Since investor Paul Tudor Jones revealed a BTC position in May, what has seemed like a wave of high-profile announcements followed. In reality, however, fewer than 10 investors have bought almost 3% of the total BTC supply with the intention to hold.
Based on headlines and publicly available documents filed with regulators, we’ve compiled a list of known BTC investments by institutional investors over the last few months:
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust
The fund saw an addition of 400,000 BTC since the beginning of the year, increasing assets under management (AUM) in BTC terms by 193%. Grayscale AUM in dollar terms currently sits at USD 19.5 billion and started the year at USD 2.1 billion.
Paul Tudor Jones
Based on the 2% figure that was revealed, it can be assumed that Jones purchased 5,625 BTC in May. Jones' nearly USD 45 million placement is currently worth about USD 180 million.
Microstrategy
70,470 BTC purchased over a period of several months at an aggregate purchase price of approximately USD 1.125 billion and at average purchase prices of USD 15,964 per BTC.
Stanley Druckenmiller
In a November interview with CNBC, Druckenmiller revealed that he owns “many many more times gold than I own Bitcoin.” While Druckenmiller did not reveal the value of his BTC position, if it is assumed to be 1% of his firm Duquesne Capital’s portfolio at the time of his November interview, he would own roughly 2,333 BTC.
Guggenheim Partners
Guggenheim Partners was revealed to be considering an investment in BTC via the Grayscale Bitcoin Fund in a November filing with the SEC. That filing specified the firm is seeking to invest up to 10% of its Guggenheim Macro Opportunities Fund, worth USD 4.97 billion. The firm has not yet confirmed that purchase.
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.
In November, MassMutual, a life insurance company, revealed it had purchased USD 100 million worth of BTC. Based on prices ahead of that interview MassMutual would have purchased around 5,128 BTC.
Ruffer Investment
UK-based investment firm Ruffer confirmed purchasing USD 745 million worth of BTC in November. Based on November prices Ruffer bought roughly 49,666 BTC.
SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund
In December, SkyBridge Capital, run by former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci, filed documents with the SEC to create the SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund. The firm also revealed that their “flagship fund'' had purchased USD 310 million worth of BTC in November and December. This would give SkyBridge a balance of 17,040 BTC.
Based on this back-of-the-envelope math, we can conclude that the above investors purchased about 550,362 BTC in 2020. These purchases represent nearly 2.9% of all BTC in current supply. The fact that a handful of investors among the tens of thousands that exist have managed to pull almost 3% of BTC supply off the market is striking. In this context, institutional involvement in BTC appears extremely early. Incremental institutional entrants will continue to have the ability to remove significant portions of BTC until the market becomes much larger.