MicroStrategy and ARK Invest Amplify BTC Holdings: A Major Crypto Leap

• MicroStrategy Fortifies Bitcoin Holdings with Additional Purchases
• ARK Invest Trades GBTC for BITO Shares
• Bitcoin Stays Resilient Ahead of Deribit's Largest Expiry
• Investor Sentiments Revealed via Social Media

MicroStrategy Fortifies Bitcoin Holdings with Additional Purchases

MicroStrategy (MSTR), recognized as the largest corporate holder of bitcoin (BTC), expanded its portfolio on Wednesday by purchasing an additional 14,620 BTC, a transaction worth approximately $615.7 million. Michael Saylor, the company's executive chairman, announced the latest addition to holdings through a tweet, indicating the bitcoins were bought at $42,110 per unit on average. With this recent acquisition, MicroStrategy's bitcoin assets have risen to 189,150 BTC, an aggregate worth of about $5.9 billion. The company's average cost for these holdings is approximately $31,168 per BTC. MicroStrategy's bitcoin investment journey began in August 2020, with its most recent purchase prior to this one occurring last month when it procured 16,130 BTC for around $608 million.

ARK Invest Trades GBTC for BITO Shares

Following its decision to exit its remaining investments in Grayscale Bitcoin$42,260 -0.64% Trust (GBTC), ARK Invest acquired 4.3 million shares of ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), currently valued at $9.2 million according to closing prices. ARK Invest, under Cathie Wood's guidance, also traded off $27.6 million of Coinbase (COIN) stock and purchased 20,000 shares of the Ark 21Shares Active Bitcoin Future Strategy ETF, as per a transaction notification. The ProShares ETF, which was unveiled in October 2021 as the first U.S. bitcoin-linked ETF, presently constitutes 5.03% of the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and is listed as its sixth-largest allocation.

Bitcoin Stays Resilient Ahead of Deribit's Largest Expiry

Bitcoin continues to maintain its position above the $40,000 mark as the countdown towards Q4 2023's final options expiry begins. On the last Friday of the year at 08:00 UTC, an impressive $7.7 billion in bitcoin (BTC)-tied options and $3.5 billion of options connected to ether (ETH) are set to expire on the crypto exchange Deribit. The expiration of over $11 billion in options represents Deribit's largest expiry to date, with nearly $5 billion predicted to expire in the money. This record-setting event could potentially lead to an uptick in hedging and trading activity, as indicated by Luuk Strijers, Deribit's Chief Commercial Officer.

Investor Sentiments Revealed via Social Media

The trends and sentiments around cryptocurrencies on social media during the past 24 hours reveal a generally optimistic bias. The green segment of the bar denotes bullish social media mentions, while red represents bearish ones. Neutral views are indicated by yellow. Retail investors appear to be mainly focused on ether and smaller alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), rather than bitcoin. This extreme bullish sentiment in altcoins could be a foreshadowing of interim market peaks, suggesting that traders may want to monitor it closely.

Edited by Jonathan Stoker