On August 2, Grayscale announced that it would send more than $ 2 billion worth of crypto assets to the Coinbase Custody Service. Not only Bitcoin, but also other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum or Ripple should be kept in this way. However, these large transactions had no impact on cryptocurrency prices.
Grayscale Investments is no stranger to business: Grayscale is the largest investment manager in the crypto sector, with $ 2.6 billion in custody assets held in custody. The company has more than doubled its assets since the first quarter of 2019.
Of course asset managers have to secure such large sums well. So far, this was largely responsible for Xapo. The only exception was the custody of the holdings Grayscales in the rather unknown cryptocurrency Horizen. Their Private Keys currently manages the Digital Asset Custody Company.
On August 2, however, it was apparent from the Coinbase blog that Grayscale Investments is transferring its assets to the Coinbase Custody Service. The stocks that Xapo took care of will find a new home.
The crypto holdings Coinbase Custody is now keeping is not just Bitcoin. Overall, this announcement concerns Grayscale's holdings in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Stellar Lumen, ZCash and Ripple. Only the holdings in Horizen are under the custody of Digital Asset Custody Group until further notice. As long as Coinbase is not accredited for the preservation of horizons, nothing will change.
Grayscales transactions visible on the blockchain?
According to Coinbase, the stock movement is said to have started on July 29th. Powerful movements could also be seen on the Bitcoin Blockchain that day. Thus, it could be observed that more than 40,000 BTC were moved:
For many, understandably, the question arose as to what that transaction was. In fact, these transactions could be attributed to Xapo. The fact that on the same day not so large transactions, but at least transactions worth between 5,000 and 6,000 BTC were to be seen, confirms the hypothesis that these transactions are related to the announcement of Grayscale: Such high transactions have already occurred in a Coinbase Custody internal maintenance late last year ago.
The big bitcoin movements of early December 2018 also seem to have shown investors that a cool head is a good guide to whale activity. The bitcoin price has hardly changed since July 29th.
