SEI, SUI, RUNE slump as Bitcoin drops amid Grayscale dump

• Sei (SEI) Sui (SUI) and THORChain (RUNE) were among biggest decliners on Thursday as Bitcoin and Ethereum struggled.
• Declines for BTC came amid ongoing sell-off from Grayscale, which had deposited over $1.7 billion in BTC to Coinbase Prime since January 12.

The crypto market flipped red on Thursday afternoon as Bitcoin price fell below $41,500 again. Altcoins were also struggling, with Ethereum below $2,500 as the global crypto market cap shrunk by about 2.4% to $1.71 trillion.

Among the biggest losers on the day were Sei (SEI), down 15%; Sui (SUI) down 10%; and THORChain (RUNE), down 13% at the time of writing.

Grayscale dumping BTC amid ETF redemptions

The crypto downturn came as Grayscale transferred another 9,840 BTC worth $418 million to Coinbase Prime, with the total amount of BTC moved from the GBTC ETF issuer reaching 41,478 BTC. In total, Grayscale has moved over $1.7 billion in BTC to Coinbase Prime since January 12, with these sold as the company handles redemptions.

On Thursday, Grayscale saw $450 million in outflows. Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy noted this outlook on X.

grayscale transferred 9,839 BTC ($417m) onchain to coinbase prime this morning to settle yesterday’s redemptions (T+1 settlement).

notably less than the day before when they moved 18k BTC ($770m) to coinbase prime to settle tuesday’s redemptions

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) January 18, 2024

Both BTC and ETH were trading 3% down in the past 24 hours, while in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, Solana had shed more than 5% as it dipped below $100, while Avalanche was trading nearly 6% in the red at $33.49.