Crypto Investment Firm Grayscale Brings In $330 Million Even as Market Sags
*by Tanaya Macheel*
Next year may signal a more widespread adoption of crypto among institutional investors ー if the current momentum continues, that is.
Grayscale, a veteran digital currency investment firm, saw record inflows, $330 million in the first three quarters of 2018 ー most of which came from institutional investors including hedge funds, endowments and pensions, according to the managing director.
“That’s against nothing but price decline,” which investors are using as “a time to create \[an\] initial position or start scaling into a position” in Bitcoin or other crypto assets, Michael Sonnenshein told Cheddar on Friday.
In the third quarter, 73 percent of inflows were into the Bitcoin Investment Trust, while 27 percent were into Grayscale products tied to other digital assets, according to Grayscale’s third-quarter Digital Asset Investment Report, published Thursday.
For the year to date, Bitcoin accounted for 66 percent of total assets raised and 34 percent went into other digital assets.
Most of Grayscale’s capital inflows are going to its Bitcoin product because investors are most familiar and comfortable with it. Eight of Grayscale’s nine different products are for single currencies ーlike Bitcoin or XRP. The ninth is a bundle that offers exposure to the largest digital currencies by market cap.
“We’re starting to see a lot more interest in those types of structures, especially in the wake of seeing other firms shut down their index products,” Sonnenshein said of the large cap fund.
“A lot of folks want to generally allocate to the space and not have to choose winners or avoid losers and like the idea of the large cap fund for that very reason.”
Since late last year’s run-up, when the price of Bitcoin reached nearly $20,000, Fidelity, the third-largest asset manager in the world, announced plans to launch a crypto custody and institutional brokerage business. Goldman Sachs announced plans to open a crypto trading operation. Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has entered the crypto industry through a new company called Bakkt. Earlier this week, Morgan Stanley released a bullish report on cryptocurrencies, hailing Bitcoin and other digital assets as a "new institutional investment class.”
“The once taboo nature of investing in digital currencies has been shrugged off by most investors. When we go sit down with our hedge fund clients, endowments, whatever they may be, there is so much knowledge on the other side of the table that, to us, is really validating," Sonnenshein said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/morgan-stanley-says-cryptocurrencies-are-a-new-asset-class).
DJ X, alongside Molly Holder, Senior Director of Product Personalization, takes us inside Spotify's A.I. DJ and how it's the best new way to listen to music.
Skype users are scrambling to find an alternative after Microsoft shut down the pioneering internet phone service which let people make cheap long distance calls and chat with other users. Google Voice lets users make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser but it's only available to people in the U.S. Viber users can call phone numbers but can't get a number to receive calls. Zoom offers phone options too. You could get a number from a low cost virtual carrier or try other internet phone services. Microsoft says some Skype features will migrate to Teams, but its Teams Phone feature is only for businesses.
Amid a backdrop of ongoing tariff uncertainty, more and more gamers are facing price hikes. Microsoft raised recommended retailer pricing for its Xbox consoles and controllers around the world this week. Its Xbox Series S, for example, now starts at $379.99 in the U.S. — up $80 from the $299.99 price tag that debuted in 2020. And its more powerful Xbox Series X will be $599.99 going forward, a $100 jump from its previous $499.99 listing. The tech giant didn’t mention tariffs specifically, but cited wider “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” Beyond the U.S., Microsoft also laid out Xbox price adjustments for Europe, the U.K. and Australia. The company said all other countries would also receive updates locally.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. in the current fiscal quarter will be sourced from India, while iPads and other devices will come from Vietnam as the company works to avoid the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its business. Apple’s earnings for the first three months of the year topped Wall Street’s expectations thanks to high demand for its iPhones, and the company said tariffs had a limited effect on the fiscal second quarter’s results. Cook added that for the current quarter, assuming things don’t change, Apple expects to see $900 million added to its costs as a result of the tariffs.
