Data shared by the crypto futures trading platform, Bybt shows that Grayscale Investments fund has offloaded massive amounts of its XRP and XLM holdings.
Specifically, the New York-based crypto-fund manager sold 9.18 million units in Ripple’s associated token (worth roughly $2 million) and liquidated $1.2 million worth of Stellar’s token by dumping 9.74 million XLM.
While the move to cut XRP holdings could be justified in light of the SEC’s allegations that XRP is a security, it is not hard to understand why Grayscale has proactively recused its exposure to XLM token to less than $1.27 million.
Stellar is an open-source payment technology that shares several similarities with Ripple. Both coins shared the same protocol initially and were co-founded by the same person, Jed McCaleb. Much like Ripple, Stellar aims to connect financial institutions and reduce the cost and time required for cross-border transfers.
However, Stellar showed a muted reaction to the news. Its native coin XLM climbed to about 13 cents, up 1.9% on the day, according to CoinMarketCap. That gave the digital currency a market value of about $2.9 billion, making it the 14th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
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Despite the news, XRP is up 22% for the day, with trading close to $0.22 at the time of writing. XRP briefly retained its position as the 3rd largest crypto by its market capitalization, behind Bitcoin and Ethereum, but has quickly slid down to the fourth place.
Grayscale reported yesterday a record $19 billion in total crypto assets under management. The new data suggests that institutional investors, dominated by hedge funds, have been scooping up Bitcoin products, despite a historically tumultuous market.
Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust accounts for the bulk of the investments, with a total inflow of 600,000 BTC worth above $16 billion.
According to Grayscale, the figures show strong and sustained evidence that investors are increasing their digital asset exposure.
Grayscale Investments, a unit of Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group, previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to list its Bitcoin Investment Trust as an exchange-traded fund in a $500 million initial public offering. The request was filed in 2017, only to withdraw after the SEC denied the Winklevoss ETF.
