Bitcoin’s (BTC) dip to under $93,000 yesterday was exploited as a fire sale by the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock and MARA Holdings.
BlackRock acquired 7,750 BTC as investors continue to acquire its iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund, data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence shows. Thomas Fahrer, founder of crypto markets firm tracking the ETF Apollo, highlighted that the firm now holds $50 billion worth of Bitcoin.
🚨 Blackrock Buys 7750 #Bitcoin
They hold over $50 Billion in Assets.
Fastest growing ETF EVER! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/uJU9MLTlTb
— Thomas | heyapollo.com (@thomas_fahrer) December 6, 2024
Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings similarly bought 1,423 Bitcoin — worth $139.5 million — split between four transactions on Dec. 5 and Dec. 6. The acquisition was highlighted by a blockchain data provider in a Dec. 6 X post.
The purchases follow MARA closing its second $850 million convertible note offering. The offering was announced as a way to accumulate more Bitcoin in the company coffers:
“MARA expects to use approximately $48 million of the net proceeds from the sale of the notes to repurchase approximately $51 million in aggregate principal amount of its existing convertible notes due 2026 […] with the remainder of the net proceeds to be used to acquire additional bitcoin and for general corporate purposes.”
MARA now holds 22,108 BTC worth $2.17 billion, data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence shows. The value of the holdings more than doubled from their value of $899 million reported one month ago.
During the third quarter of 2024, MARA took MicroStrategy’s example and decided to retain all the Bitcoin it mines and accumulate as much of it as possible. MicroStrategy is a publicly-traded business intelligence firm founded back in 1989 that pivoted to accumulating high volumes of Bitcoin in 2020.
MicroStrategy now holds well over 1% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist, with institutional interest in MicroStrategy being an interest in a regulatory-friendly Bitcoin investment. The firm’s chairman Michael Saylor, will also pitch adopting the same strategy to the Microsoft board on Dec. 10. Saylor said that he will have three minutes to argue his case:
“So you will see me putting together the three-minute proposal for Microsoft […], and we’ll send it to the board.”
