Bitcoin, ether decline, stocks sink and Ark is warm on GBTC

Crypto markets slid on Wednesday as altcoins surrendered gains made at the top of the week.

Bitcoin was down 2.6% at $16,479 over the past day, while ether lost 4.5% to trade at $1,207, according to data compiled by CoinGecko.

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

Altcoins, which had risen earlier in the week, fell even more. Polygon’s MATIC traded down 5.9% to $0.90, Polkadot’s DOT shed 4.7% to $5.72, and Solana’s SOL plunged 6.4% to $13.96.

The native coin of Chiliz, the home of socios and sports fan tokens, was up 4% over the past 24 hours. Several international teams — Argentina and Portugal — offer fan tokens through partnerships with socios. The fan token chain could be benefiting from the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on Sunday.

Crypto stocks trade down

Publicly traded companies exposed to cryptocurrencies or focused on blockchain technology traded down at the open.

Coinbase dropped around 10% shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET. Goldman Sachs lowered its price target for the exchange to $41 last week. The investment bank maintained its sell rating.

Jack Dorsey’s Block was down over 3.2%, according to Nasdaq data via TradingView.

Crypto bank Silvergate also fell at the open, shedding 6%. Silvergate tanked 12% on Tuesday as fears over the firm’s exposure to FTX spread.

Elsewhere, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy — which owns 130,000 BTC — slipped 5%.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were down 0.54% and 1.1%, respectively.

Double dipping

Ark Invest followed up Monday’s GBTC purchase by adding a further 273,327 shares worth $2.6 million on Tuesday. Cathie Wood’s fund has purchased over $5.4 million in GBTC shares this week.

GBTC has been trading at a discount since February 2021. The discount represents the market price of shares in the trust. GBTC is currently trading at a discount of -37.13% to its net asset value, or NAV. The discount is up from its all-time low of -41.69% last Thursday.

Grayscale said on Wednesday that it had no exposure to Genesis — a separate Digital Currency Group firm that has halted customer withdrawals.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Source: https://www.theblock.co/post/187521/bitcoin-ether-decline-stocks-sink-and-ark-is-warm-on-gbtc?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss