With the price of Bitcoin (BTC) hovering around USD 100,000, interest in the digital currency has been increasing and an accumulation race has begun involving companies and even governments.
The idea of following the steps of incorporating BTC into the treasury – which MicroStrategy started in 2021 – seems to be seducing more than one company. Especially now, when Michael Saylor’s company earn up to 500 million dollars per day thanks to your investments in bitcoin.
MicroStrategy’s steps are followed by the Bitcoin Mining company MARA Holding, which this December 2 announced a proposal of private offering of convertible senior bonds at 0% interest, for 700 million dollars, with the aim of repurchasing existing bonds and acquiring more bitcoinsas reported by CriptoNoticias.
The announcement is similar to the one that MARA made on November 18, when it also launched a convertible bond offer to acquire 6,474 BTC, worth approximately $615 million. The company has acquired 12,965 BTC so far in 2024. An amount that adds up to 8,563 BTC that has been mined throughout the year.
With these holdings, MARA Holdings, which by market capitalization is the largest publicly traded Cryptocurrency mining company, becomes the second largest corporate holder of bitcoinafter MicroStrategy.
MARA is the second largest corporate holder of Bitcoin. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.
This is an adjustment to the investment strategy that companies around the world are executing, in order to increase their holdings in the digital currency. This, in the midst of the dizzying rally that BTC has experienced in recent weeks.
This was also done by Boyaa Interactive International, a holding company specialized in online card and board games, which recently adjusted its treasury assets to accumulate more bitcoin. As reported by CriptoNoticias, the company said that had converted 14,200 ether (ETH), worth more than $49 million, into about 515 BTC.
In this way, the number of companies that have been adding bitcoin to their balance sheets grows or increasing your existing holdings. Among them, Metaplanet Inc. stands out, a Japanese company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and which this year increased its BTC holdings to more than 855 bitcoins.
It is estimated that only in the month of November a total of 11 companies announced the creation of their own strategic BTC reserves. A trend that is capturing the interest of businessmen from Asia and the United States. The list includes Rumble, LQR House, Remixpoint, Genius Group, Cosmos Health, Jiva Technologies, Hoth Therapeutics, Thumzup Media Corp, Acurx Pharmaceuticals and SOS.
As shown by the BitcoinTreasurie statisticss, there are several public companies that have doubled their holdings in a year. The numbers passed from 253,736 BTC in January to 525,667 BTC at the beginning of this month of December. A growth of more than 100% in a few months.
In January 2024 BTC holdings of public companies were just over 250,000 BTC and are now approaching 400,000. Source: bitcointreasuries.
New cryptocurrency ETFs are coming
However, the race to accumulate BTC is not only notable for the purchases made by companies, but is also gaining ground in the increase in applications for exchange-traded funds (bitcoin ETFs). Following the approval of the 12 bitcoin ETFs by the United States authorities last January – and which now have around $100 billion in assets -, a new wave of requests has emerged.
This December 2 it was learned that a quartet of asset managers have submitted applications before US regulators to create ETFs that invest in bitcoin, but using derivatives in order to minimize or protect investors against possible losses.
According to the Financial Times, the firms Calamos Investments, First Trust Portfolios, Innovator ETFs and Grayscale Investments made proposals to bring bitcoin into the realm of protected/managed floor strategies and covered call optionss. They are two very popular products that use derivatives to reduce investors’ risk, in exchange for them giving up some potential profits. The goal is to attract more measured investors by reducing the risk of extreme losses.
«If people are going to allocate 1 to 2 percent (of their portfolio to bitcoin), they don’t necessarily want a limit imposed on it. They do it because if bitcoin goes up 300 percent, they need to hold on to most of it for bitcoin to have a meaningful impact on their portfolio,” said Graham Day, chief investment officer at Innovator ETFs.
And this interest in these financial products is not only limited to bitcoin, since demand for ETFs based on other cryptocurrencies is morphing into a broader trend that is already taking shape on Wall Street.
VanEck, one of the asset managers in the cryptocurrency space, submitted an application for a Solana-based ETF in July this year: This, while signings such as Canary Capital, Bitwise, 21Shares and WisdomTree are seeking authorization to launch ETFs based on XRP, a cryptocurrency issued by the Ripple company. Bitwise did the same, requesting approval of an ETF that groups ten digital assets.
A significant number of applications for new ETFs in the crypto space are thus expected to emerge under the incoming Donald Trump administration.
Support for cryptocurrency companies increases
The enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies extends to the realm of fundraising, with multiple projects attracting investments from major global companies.
According to Phoenix Group, USDX.Money, a Blockchain-based stablecoin platform, raised 45 million dollars in a funding round backed by leading investors including NGC Ventures, LSE Capital and UOB Ventures.World.
Something similar happened to Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that closed a $30 million financing round with the support of the company Tron, the most used network to send and receive USDT; while Partior, a blockchain platform specializing in wholesale banking and cross-border settlements, received a $20 million investment from Deutsche Bank; and the U2U network obtained financing of 13.8 million dollars, with investors such as KuCoin and IDG Capital.
We are facing a set of financing rounds that reflect greater interest in cryptocurrencies and their transformative potential. They are proposals where traditional finance investors and the ecosystem are increasingly converging to support projects that promise scalability, innovation and real-world impact.
With all these initiatives underway, everything points to a favorable outlook for the foray of cryptocurrencies into global finance. A process that has bitcoin as the spearhead, placing it among the most precious assets on the planet that many now want to accumulate. Are you going to stay out?
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