BlockFi Quickly Reverses Plan to Stop Accepting GBTC as Collateral

Jimmy He

Updated 12 July 2022 at 2:31 pm·1-min read

UPDATE (20:49 UTC): Adds statement from BlockFi that it is not saying it will not support GBTC as collateral.

Crypto lending platform BlockFi, after asserting earlier Tuesday that it would no longer accept shares in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) as collateral for loans, reversed its position later in the day and issued a statement that, "We are not saying that we won't support GBTC as collateral moving forward."

According to a BlockFi representative: “While we don't currently hold any positions in GBTC and are winding down a couple of loans where GBTC is part of the collateral package, we are not saying that we won't support GBTC as collateral moving forward. Like any collateral, we constantly evaluate appropriate collateral haircut ratios and aim to accept as many types of collateral that our client's hold as possible."

Earlier in the day, BlockFi had communicated plans to make an official announcement regarding GBTC later this week, according to The Block, which first reported the original news report.

Responding to a tweet on Monday from CoinShares' Meltem Demirors – who claimed BlockFi still holds "a ton of GBTC" on its balance sheet – BlockFi CEO Zac Prince said his company "directly holds zero GBTC." He added there remains a couple of small loans with GBTC as collateral that BlockFi is in the process of winding down.
Grayscale Investments, the manager of GBTC, is owned by Digital Currency Group, the parent company of CoinDesk.
The report was confirmed to CoinDesk earlier in the day by a BlockFi representative.

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