The 1inch team’s investment fund caught the attention of on-chain analysts and crypto market watchers today by executing a significant sale.
The fund converted a portion of its Bitcoin holdings into stablecoins. Blockchain data reveals that the fund sold 70.76 WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) for 6.676 million USDC. The sale happened just 30 minutes ago; the fund sold at a price of 94,346 dollars per WBTC. That’s a clear profit compared to the previous average buy-in price.
This recent sale seems to be part of a larger effort to reweight or de-risk the fund’s portfolio. That’s especially pertinent as the market continues to roil crypto prices and create trading opportunities that just about any investor would want to avoid.
From Accumulation to Realization: A Shift in StrategyFrom February 2 to March 10, the 1inch team made significant investments in three key digital assets: ETH, WBTC, and their native 1INCH token. The total investment was $44.22 million, and from the look of it, the team was engaging in a methodical, almost leisurely, accumulation of high-value digital assets.
Part of the overall amount, 28.85 million dollars was designated for ETH, acquiring 11,198 tokens at an average cost of 2,577 dollars. While that was going on, the fund was also picking up 160.8 WBTC for 14.21 million dollars, at an average cost of 88,395 dollars per token. In addition, a much smaller slice, 1.15 million dollars, was used to buy up 4.7 million 1INCH tokens, which cost an average of 24.5 cents each.
Only WBTC has progressed to the level of profitability, as seen in this latest transaction, of the three digital assets. The recent sale at 94,346 dollars per token reflects a gain of approximately 6.7 percent over their original purchase price. Though the profit margin may not seem dramatic at first glance, the scale of the transaction — over 6.6 million dollars — underscores the impact of even modest price movements in large-scale crypto portfolios.
At the same time, ETH and 1INCH are both still in the red regarding their present market prices. This makes WBTC the fund’s only successful trade from this buying cycle so far.
The sale implies that the 1inch team could be trying to secure profits while the market conditions are good for Bitcoin and its associated assets. Their choice to switch from WBTC to USDC—a stablecoin that maintains a 1:1 ratio with the US dollar—seems to suggest they are taking a defensive stance. If they are betting that the prices of the Bitcoin family of assets could soon dip, then this would be a smart move. But if they expect prices to keep rising, then going to USDC makes no sense.
This shift could likewise be viewed as an element of a larger trend among institutional-scale investors in the crypto world: cashing in on the best-performing assets while giving the worst performers a bit more slack to make a comeback. It also underscores a more personalized, individualized risk approach to classifying each asset.
New Buying Phase For 1Inch?Some analysts think 1inch fund might be preparing for a new buying phase. If so, the fund could be waiting for price corrections or for more stability in macroeconomic signals before deploying more capital. Is it back to stablecoins for the fund? The shift back to USDC suggests the fund now has the flexibility to act quickly without being locked into assets that could be in a correlated phase shift.
Some think the fund may be creeping toward a full exit from WBTC. If that’s the case, it might reflect bigger worries among fund managers about Bitcoin’s future performance. You know, the typical “Bitcoin might be overbought, and it seems to be a risk we’re taking that is not paying off right now, so let’s lighten up on that risk” kind of thinking. A few other things might be happening, too.
When significant actions occur among large crypto players, they tend to have a psychological effect on smaller investors and traders. This particular transaction may influence the sentiment around Bitcoin and stablecoins in the short term, simply because of the large nature of the activity.
Now, the crypto world will watch closely to see whether this move marks the start of a larger strategy shift by the 1inch team or if it is simply an opportunistic profit-taking maneuver in an otherwise long-term investment plan.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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